













) , 

























* 































. ♦ 


l 









« 









) 



































X • 





\ 







ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 
































M 




. 






\ 





































































































































































- 

















ARE PARENTS 
PEOPLE? 

* 

j 

BY 

ALICE DUER MILLER 

AUTHOR OF 

“THE HAPPIEST TIMES OF THEIR LIVES,” “THE CHARM SCHOOL,” 
“COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN,” AND “MANSLAUGHTER” 


NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1924 













Copyright, 1914 , 1918 , 1919 , 1922 , 1923 , 1924 
By ALICE DUER MILLER 



i 


PRINTED IN U. S. A. 


VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC. 
BINQHAMTON AND NEW YORK 


JAN 27 ’24 ' 





-ft 


C1A777340 


To 

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW 


“That little person and small stature was quickly 
founde to contaynea greate hearte. ” 

—Clarendon. 



4 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Are Parents People? .i 

The American Husband.102 

Devoted Women.129 

The Return to Normalcy. 154 

The Red Carpet. 179 

The Widow’s Might.205 

Whose Petard Was It?.232 

The New Stoics. 261 

Worse than Married.277 











ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


I 



lHE girls marched into chapel singing Jerusalem 


the Golden. Some of the voices were shrill and 


-JL piping, and some were clear and sweet; but all 
had that peculiar young freshness which always makes 
old hearts ache, and which now drew tears to the eyes of 
many visiting parents looking down from the gallery, and 
trying not to crane their necks conspicuously when their 
own offspring appeared in the aisle below. 

On Sundays the whole school came out in blue serge 
and black velvet tam-o’-shanters. The little girls 
marched first—some as young as eleven years—and as 
they came from the main school buildings and marched 
up the long aisle they were holding the high notes, 
“Jerusalem the golden,” and their voices sounded like 
young birds’, before the older girls came crashing in with 
the next line, “With milk and honey blest.” They 
marched quickly—it was a tradition of the school— 
divided to right and left, and filed into their appointed 
places. 

Last of all came the tall senior president, and beside 
her a little figure that hardly reached her shoulder, and 
seemed as if one of the younger children were out of 
place; yet this was an important figure in the life of the 
school—Lita Hazlitt, the chairman of the self-government 
committee. 


l 


2 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Her face was almost round except for a small point 
that was her chin; her hair—short curls, not ringlets— 
curved up on her black velvet tarn, and was blond, but 
a dusky blond. There was something alert, almost 
naughty in her expression, although at the moment this 
was mitigated by an air of discretion hardly avoidable by 
the chairman of the self-government committee in church. 

In this, her last year at Elbridge Hall, she had come to 
love the chapel. Its gray stone and dark narrow win¬ 
dows of blue or amethyst, the organ and the voices, gave 
her a sense of peace almost mystic—a mood she could 
never have attained unaided, for hers was a nature 
essentially practical. Like most practical people, she 
was kind. It was so easy for Lita to see what was needed 
—to do a problem in geometry or mend a typewriter or 
knit a sweater—that she was always doing such things 
for her friends, not so much from unselfishness as from 
sheer competence. 

The seniors sat in the carved stalls against the wall, 
and Lita liked to rest her hand on the rounded head of a 
dragon which made the arm of her chair. It had a pol¬ 
ished surface and the knobs of the ears fitted into her 
fingers. 

“Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us, 
in sundry places, to acknowledge and confess—” 

Lita loved the words of the service, and she noted that 
part of their beauty was the needless doubling of words— 
dissemble and cloak—assemble and meet together— 
requisite and necessary. Yet Miss Fraser, who taught 
English at Elbridge, would call that tautology in a 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 3 

theme. . . . She sank on her knees, burying her small 
nose in her hands for the general confession. 

As they rose from their knees and the choir broke out 
into O Come, let us sing unto the Lord, Lita allowed her¬ 
self one glance at the gallery, where her lovely mother 
was just rising, slim and erect, with a bearing polite rather 
than devout. Lita could see one immaculate gray glove 
holding her prayerbook. She was a beautifully dressed 
person. The whole school had an orgy of retrimming 
hats and remaking dresses after Mrs. Hazlitt had spent a 
Sunday at Elbridge. She was as blond as her daughter, 
except that somehow in the transmission of the family 
coloring she had acquired a pair of enormous black eyes 
from some contradictory ancestor. Even across the 
chapel Lita could see the dark splotches that were her 
mother’s eyes. It was great fun—the Sundays that Mrs. 
Hazlitt came to the school, and yet Lita was always a 
little nervous. Her mother said anything that came into 
her head—simply anything, commenting on teachers and 
making fun of rules. The girls loved it, of course, but 
sometimes— The First Lesson had begun. 

The service went on. It was not until the Second 
Lesson was being read that Lita, glancing idly toward the 
ante-chapel, saw that a terrible thing had happened: 
Her father had arrived too—unexpected and un¬ 
announced. He was standing there under the gallery, his 
hat and stick and gloves all held in one hand, and his 
mouth just not smiling as he at last contrived to meet her 
eyes. There they were—her mother looking down at her 
so calmly from the gallery and her father waiting so confi- 


4 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


dently for her below, each unaware of the other’s 
presence. What in thunder was she going to do? 

Their divorce had taken place a great many years 
before, when Lita was so young that her mother was not 
much more important to her than her nurse, and her 
father very much less so. She was accustomed to the 
idea of their divorce; but she did wish they were divorced 
as Aurelia’s parents were—quite amicably, even meeting 
now and then to talk over questions of Aurelia’s welfare. 
Or the way Carrie Waldron’s were—each remarried 
happily to someone else, so that Carrie had two amusing 
sets of half brothers and sisters growing up in different 
parts of the country. But Lita was aware of a con¬ 
strained bitterness, a repressed hatred between her 
parents. When they said, “Perhaps your father does 
not quite take in, my dear—” or “I would not interfere 
with any plan of your mother’s; but I must say—” 
Lita was conscious of a poisoned miasma that seemed to 
rise from old battlegrounds. 

And now, in a few minutes, these two people who had 
not spoken for thirteen years would come face to face in 
the cheerful group of parents which every Sunday 
brought to the school. The few minutes after the service 
when everyone stood about on the grass outside the 
church and chatted was a time of public friendliness 
between three inharmonious classes—parents, teachers 
and pupils; and there these two dear foes of hers would 
be, each waiting so confidently to claim her undivided 
attention. She must prevent it. 

She had the sermon to think it out, and for the first 
time in her life she hoped it would be a long sermon. The 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


5 


preacher, a fine-looking old missionary bishop, with a 
long upper lip like a lawyer, and a deep-set eye like a 
fanatic, was going up into the pulpit, turning on the 
reading light, shaking back the fine frills of his episcopal 
sleeves. 

“My text,” he was saying, “will be taken from the 
eleventh chapter of Isaiah, the sixth verse: ‘The wolf 
also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie 
down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and 
the fading together; and a little child shall lead them.’ 
The eleventh chapter of Isaiah, the sixth verse.” 

Well, the text was not inappropriate, Lita thought; but 
she had no intention of listening. The situation, besides 
its practical difficulties, brought all the emotion of her 
childhood’s worries and confusions. One of her very 
earliest recollections went back to a time when her 
parents still loved each other. She and her mother had 
been sitting on the floor playing with paper dolls, and 
suddenly her father had appeared unexpectedly in the 
doorway—returned ahead of time from a journey. What 
Lita specially remembered was the way her mother sprang 
up in one single long motion and flung herself into his 
arms, and how they had clung together and gone out of 
the room without a word to her, leaving her conscious, 
even at four, that she was forgotten. Presently her 
mother had sent her nurse, Margaret, to finish the game; 
but the game was already over. Margaret was desirable 
when one was tired or hungry or sleepy, but absolutely 
useless at games of the imagination. 

After that Lita could just remember days when she 
would see her mother crying—peculiar conduct for a 


6 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


grown-up person, since grown-up people were never 
naughty or afraid and could do anything they wanted to 
do, and did. It shocked Lita to see her mother cry; it 
was contrary to the plan of the universe. And then, 
soon after this, her father, as far as she was concerned, 
ceased to be; and it must be owned she did not greatly 
miss him. 

He ceased to be as a visible presence; but at immensely 
long intervals—that is to say, once a year, at Christmas— 
magical presents arrived for her, which she knew came 
from him. The first was the largest doll she had ever 
seen. It came from Paris and brought a trousseau in a 
French trunk. It was an incredible delight. She 
dreamed about it at night, and could hardly believe each 
morning on waking that it was reality. The only mitiga¬ 
tion of her delight was that her mother did not admire 
the doll. She said it had an ugly, stary face. Lita, 
beginning the stupendous task of writing a letter of 
thanks, with a lead pencil on ruled paper, wrote, “Dear 
Father: Mother thinks the doll has a stary face, but I 
love her—” Only Margaret said that wouldn’t do, and 
she had to begin all over again, her round, cramped hand 
pressing on the pencil until her nails were white. 

When she was eight a gold bracelet arrived, set with 
red stones. This time her mother was even more out¬ 
spoken. She said to Aunt Minnie, “Of course, she 
bought it! Isn’t it just what you’d expect?” Lita 
guessed that “she” meant her father’s new wife, for she 
knew vaguely that he had married again and was living 
abroad. She herself thought the bracelet beautiful; but 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


7 


it was put away, and she was never allowed to wear it. 
And now, only a little while before, she had seen it in an 
old jewelry case of her mother’s and had been surprised 
to find it was just what her mother had said it was. 

Then two years later a set of sables had come. This, 
too, her mother had utterly condemned. 

“Sables for a child of ten!” 

Aunt Minnie had suggested that Lita’s mother wear 
them herself and had been well scolded for the suggestion. 
Lita was content that these should be confiscated. She 
preferred her own little ermine set. 

Until she was sixteen, except for presents, she lived 
the life of a child with only one parent, and a very satis¬ 
factory life it was. Even when her father was in the 
United States he did not always take the trouble to see 
her. Perhaps it was not made too easy for him to do so. 
But within the last two years things had changed. His 
second wife had died and he had come back to New York 
to live. He was older, he was lonely, and a pretty daugh¬ 
ter almost grown up was very different from a trouble¬ 
some child who couldn’t walk as fast as he did, who re¬ 
quired meals at strange hours and could eat only in¬ 
nocuous food. In his own silent way Mr. Hazlitt began 
to bid for his daughter’s affection. 

Lita liked the process and she liked him, although she 
felt immediately that the feeling was a betrayal of her 
lovely, devoted mother. It wasn’t right, she reflected, 
that her father, who had forgotten her existence for so 
many years, should come back, and just because he was 
nice looking and well off and knew the art of life should 


8 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


be able to capture her affection as much or more than if 
he had stayed at home and been a good parent. It 
wasn’t right, but it was a fact. 

For two years the struggle had been going on, steadily 
rising in intensity. Her father had begun by asking for 
very little—hardly more than an outlawed parent could 
ask—but Lita knew that she was becoming dearer and 
dearer to him, and that her parents were now contending 
for first place in her heart. Soon it would be for her ex¬ 
clusive love. The pain of the situation to her was that she 
was to them not only a battlefield but a weapon and the 
final trophy of the war. As they never met, and wrote 
only through their lawyers, she was their most vivid 
channel of communication. She loved her mother the best 
—much the best—but her mother was a presupposition of 
her life, part of the background, whereas her father was 
an excitement, a stranger, a totally new experience. 

When she dined with her mother, that was the solid 
comfort of everyday life; but when she went out to a 
restaurant to dine with her father—that was a party. 

When her mother told her she was looking well the 
compliment often meant only that Mrs. Hazlitt approved 
of her own taste in clothes; but if her father said so it 
was the reaction of an outsider, a critic, a man of the 
world; it raised the whole level of her self-esteem. She 
couldn’t help valuing it more. 

The sermon was nearing its end. Twice already the 
bishop had begun a sentence, “And now in conclu¬ 
sion—” The next time, Lita thought, it might take. If 
only Aurelia were about! Aurelia was an authority on the 
management of divorced parents, though usually with 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


9 


mercenary intent. Aurelia had studied the art of in¬ 
timating to one parent that the other did you rather 
better. It brought Aurelia great affluence; but Lita did 
not quite approve. She thought it too easy to be sports¬ 
manlike; the poor dears were so innocent. But Aurelia 
was stern. She said children ought to get something 
out of the situation. Unfortunately, this Sunday, of all 
Sundays, Aurelia was laid up in the infirmary with a 
strange and violent form of indigestion which Lita was 
afraid would turn out to be appendicitis. Miss Barton, 
the head of the school, believed it to be indigestion merely 
because she had discovered that Aurelia the night before 
had eaten peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate cake and 
tomato mayonnaise. What of course one could not tell 
Miss Barton was that Aurelia had been eating just such 
illicit Saturday-night suppers ever since she came to 
Elbridge. 

Lita had only said very gently “Pm afraid it’s more 
than indigestion,” and Miss Barton had just glanced at 
her as if she were a silly ass. 

If Aurelia had been about she would have been sent 
bounding up the gallery stairs to detain Mrs. Hazlitt, 
while Lita herself would have run out and explained the 
situation to Mr. Hazlitt. Well, as it was, she would 
have a minute or two. The gallery stairs were narrow 
and it took people a little while to come down. 

The sermon was over. The organ rolled out into 
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, an anthem 
which Lita in her childhood had always supposed was in¬ 
troduced at this point in order to express gratitude that 
the sermon was over. 


10 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


The girls sprang up as if on wires. Presently they 
were all marching down the aisle again. Lita looked up 
In the gallery and smiled at her mother, looked down and 
smiled at her father; and then, as soon as she was back 
again in the main school building, she turned and ran as 
fast as she could go to the main door of the chapel. 

A crowd of parents and teachers had already gathered, 
all being as civil to one another as if they were not natu¬ 
rally hostile. Lita had once overheard Miss Barton ex¬ 
claiming, “Of course, anyone could keep a good school if 
It weren’t for these parents!” Her father was standing 
;a little apart, waiting. He had put on his hat at the 
islight angle at which he wore it—a sort of defiance to his 
forty-two years. She ran up to him and flung herself 
Into his arms. 

“Pat, darling,” she said—Mr. Hazlitt’s name was 
James; Pat was a corruption of Lita’s early attempts 
upon the Latin tongue—“it’s simply great to see you 
back; but—” 

“I only got back last night,” said Mr. Hazlitt, as if he 
himself were surprised at his own eagerness. “I have 
Miss Barton’s permission for you to lunch with me—” 

“Pat dear!” 

“—and spend the afternoon.” 

“Father!” 

f Out of the narrow doorway that led from the gallery 
■stairs Lita could now see her mother emerging. She was 
dressed in soft blues and grays like a pigeon’s breast, and 
her eyes, dazzled by the March sunlight, were darting 
about in search of her daughter among all the other 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


11 


figures in blue serge. Then Lita saw that Miss Barton 
had stopped her and introduced the bishop. That meant 
another minute or two; her mother would feel she simply 
must be civil to the bishop. 

“Father.” 

“Don’t interrupt me, Lita. You’re just like—it’s a 
very disagreeable habit.” 

“But you see mother’s here, too, father.” 

Every trace of expression vanished from Mr. Hazlitt’s 
face—his own way of expressing emotion. 

Then he said in a hard, even voice, “My first Sunday!” 

“I know, dear, but you see it’s her regular Sunday.” 

“Of course. I’tn not criticizing your mother,” he 
answered, in that tone in which the phrase is so often 
used, as if he could do it magnificently if he let himself 
go. “Only I must say that after three months’ absence 
I did hope—” He stopped; his face, which had been 
blank before, now became set like steel, and Lita saw 
that his eyes had fallen on the former partner of his life. 
It was most alarming. At any instant her mother might 
grow weary of the bishop and turn from him. Lita laid 
her hand on her father’s arm. 

“So, you see, dear,” she said rather glibly, “I can’t 
possibly lunch with you.” 

“I don’t see it at all,” replied her father. “Your 
mother has had you to herself all this winter. I’m afraid 
I shall have to insist. There is something I want to talk 
over with you.” 

Lita had not anticipated the least difficulty with her 
father. He usually yielded his rights in silence, and 


12 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


afterward her mother explained to her how mistaken he 
had been in supposing he had any rights. She sighed, 
and he caught the sigh. 

“Unless/’ he added, “you don’t want to lunch with me.” 

His feelings were hurt. She couldn’t bear that. 

“Of course, I always want to lunch with you,” she said, 
and she was glad this hearty assurance did not carry so 
far as her mother’s ears. “I’ll run and explain, and I’ll 
meet you at the main gate in half an hour.” 

She turned away. Miss Barton, to whom Sunday was 
a terrible day, devoted to placating visiting parents, who 
always had one disagreeable thing to say before they 
left, had rather mistakenly abandoned the bishop entirely 
to Mrs. Hazlitt. As Lita approached them she heard 
her mother saying: “But I think it’s so much nicer for 
wolves to be wolfish and leopards leopardy. I’m sure 
the heathen are ever so much happier the way they are, 
sharpening their teeth and eating one another up, poor 
dears.” 

“But they are not happy, my dear madam,” said the 
bishop, driven by a sense of duty into correcting her mis¬ 
take, and yet discouraged by a sense that whatever he 
said she would interrupt him before he had said it. 
“They are not happy. They are full of terror. Dark¬ 
ness and night are to them just a recurring fear.” 

“To me too,” said Mrs. Hazlitt. “The heathen have 
nothing on me, as these girls would say. I look under 
my bed every night for a giant spider I read about when 
I was a child. You ought to be so careful what children 
read. So interesting—your sermon, bishop. I’m sure 
you could convert me if I were a heathen. Oh, I see 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


n 


you think I practically am. Oh, bishop, your face! 
Lita, the bishop thinks I’m a heathen. This is my child. 
May we go to your room before luncheon? Well, I 
never know. I’m so afraid of breaking some of their 
silly rules in this place. Oh, I hope Miss Barton did 
not hear me say that. I’ve asked that nice fat girl with 
the red hair to lunch with us at the inn. I’d rather like 
to ask the bishop too—he’s rather sweet,” she added 
regretfully as Lita began to lead her away in the direction 
of her dormitory. “But I suppose you girls wouldn’t be 
amused by a bishop.” 

“Mother dear,” said Lita, “prepare yourself for a 
shock.” 

“You’ve been expelled,” said Mrs. Hazlitt as if it had 
come at last, as she always knew it would. 

“No, it’s almost worse. Father is here too.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt stopped short and looked at her child. 

“What?” she exclaimed, and the final t of the word was 
like a bullet. “But this is my Sunday.” 

“But he didn’t know that.” 

“Didn’t he, indeed? It’s been my experience that your 
father usually contrives to know anything that it’s to his 
advantage to know—and the other way round. He just 
thought he could get away with it. Well, he can’t! ” 

“He’s been away on business for three months, mother.” 

“Has he so? Fortunately I am no longer obliged to 
keep track of your father’s comings and goings—especially 
the latter. When I did attempt to—” 

She paused, bitterly brooding on her past anxieties; 
and Lita, taking her again by the arm, succeeded in set¬ 
ting her in motion. They entered the building where Lita 


14 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


lived, mounted the stairs in silence and went to Lita’s 
room. Aurelia, who shared the room, being in the in¬ 
firmary, secured them from interruption. 

Mrs. Hazlitt walked at once to the window and peered 
out in all directions; but the window did not command 
that part of the grounds which lay between the chapel and 
the main gate. Finding the object of her hostile interest 
was not in sight, she turned back to her child. 

‘TPs really too much,” she said, “that I cannot have 
my one quiet Sunday a month with you. I never wanted 
you to go to boarding school at all. I only yielded be¬ 
cause your coming here gave your father a place where 
he could see you without being obliged to come to my 
house—not pleasant for either of us. But it’s a mistake 
to yield an inch to some people, as I ought to have known. 
I insist on my own Sunday. All other days are open to 
him, except this one, and so, of course, that’s just the 
only one—” 

“Only, mother dear, while he’s been away I have been 
coming down to you in New York for most of my 
Sundays.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt had a way of opening her large black eyes 
until her curved lashes were flattened against her lids 
and looked as if they trimmed her eyes with black fringe. 
She did it now. 

“And does he complain of that?” she asked. “Isn’t it 
natural for a girl to spend her Sundays with her mother; 
or does he expect while he’s away you and I—” 

“No, no, mother. He doesn’t complain. Father isn’t 
a complainer.” 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 15 

“Lita! You hurt my feelings very much, criticizing 
me like that.” 

“Dearest mums, I didn’t criticize you.” 

“You did! You said I was always complaining.’* 

“No, dear, I only said that father did not.” 

This was so true that Mrs. Hazlitt could not deny it, 
and so with great quickness she shifted her ground. 

“Isn’t it something new,” she said, “for you to feel it 
necessary to defend your father at every sentence?” 

“I wasn’t exactly defending him. I only—” 

“My dear, you don’t need to apologize for defending 
your father—very laudable, I’m sure. I feel deeply 
sorry for him myself—over forty, without a natural hu¬ 
man tie. Only I do not feel called on to give up one of 
my few opportunities of being with you in order to suit 
his caprices.” 

“Is.it exactly a—” 

“It is exactly that. Rather late in the day for him 
to begin to discover the responsibilities of parenthood. 
Is he to have all the rewards?” 

It did not seem a promising beginning; and Lita, in 
whom her mother’s rapidly reflected changes of idea 
always set up a sort of baffled confusion, sighed. Her 
mother caught instantly that long-drawn-in breath and 
went through a complete change of mood—as rapid as 
her mental changes. 

“Oh, well, of course you must lunch with him. I 
suppose that is what he wants, isn’t it?” 

Lita simply adored her mother when she was suddenly 
kind and reasonable like this It was, the girl knew, a 


16 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


striking triumph of the maternal instinct over the hardly 
less fundamental human instinct to stick up for one’s 
rights. 

“Oh, mums, you are awfully good,” she said. 

This was not the right thing to say; perhaps nothing 
would have been. 

“Don’t thank me,” her mother answered sharply, “as 
if I were doing you a favor. I didn’t suppose you were 
so crazy to leave me. Oh, I know; and, after all, we have 
all the rest of our lives to spend together. Be sure to 
get back in time to walk to the train with me.” 

Lita promised to be back immediately after luncheon 
was over, and she added that she did really feel it was 
better to go to her father, as he had said he had something 
he wished to discuss with her. 

At this, Mrs. Hazlitt, who, strictly against the rules 
of the school, had been sitting on Lita’s bed, sprang up, 
and the girl at once began to smooth the bed. She was 
always destroying evidence of Mrs. Hazlitt’s illegal 
conduct after one of her visits. 

“Lita,” exclaimed her mother, quite unconscious of 
any reproof in her daughter’s action, “he’s going to be 
married again! Oh! I suppose I should not have said 
that, but what else could he want to discuss? I do hope 
he is.” 

“Oh, I hope not!” said Lita, astonished to find how 
disagreeable the idea was to her. 

“But don’t you see how it would get him out of our 
way? He could hardly expect you to see much of a new 
bride, particularly the kind— Women pursue him so; 
they think that manner of his covers such a lot; they 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


17 


learn different. . . . No, Lita, not that hat—like Tweedle- 
dee in the saucepan. If you come down to me next 
Sunday I’ll get you one that matches the foulard.” 

Suddenly they began to talk about clothes, and spoke 
of nothing else until it was time for Lita to go. 

She thought as she ran across the green that she of all 
people ought to understand why her parents couldn’t get 
on. Sometimes her mother made her feel as if she were 
clinging to a slippery hillside while an avalanche passed 
over her; and sometimes her father made her feel as if 
she were trying to roll a gigantic stone up that same hill. 
But then, on the other hand, sometimes her mother made 
her feel gay and stimulated, and her father gave her calm 
and serenity. And, after all, she hadn’t chosen them; 
and they had chosen each other. 

Her father was already waiting for her in his little car, 
a runabout body on a powerful foreign chassis. Every¬ 
thing that Mr. Hazlitt had was good of its kind and well 
kept up. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, reading the 
sporting sheet of a morning paper, his knees crossed and 
one elbow over the back of the seat. He looked young 
and smart. Other cars were waiting—closed cars full of 
heavy bald parents. Lita felt a glow of pride. To go 
out with her father was like going out with a dangerous 
young man. Fortunately the diversity of tastes between 
her parents extended to their places of lodging. Her 
mother always stayed at an old-fashioned inn near the 
school grounds, whereas her father, who motored the 
forty miles from New York, and so never spent the night, 
preferred to eat at the hotel in the nearest town. 

She got in beside him and they drove for some time 


18 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


in silence. Then he said, and she saw he had been 
thinking it over for some time: 

“Lita, I want to speak to you about interrupting. It’s 
a habit a great many women allow themselves to form. 
It’s not only rude, but it’s extremely irritating—alienat¬ 
ing, indeed.” He went on to assert that such a habit 
might even wreck her married life. A man, he said, 
who was interrupted every time he opened his mouth 
might get so that he never spoke at all; never told his 
wife things she ought to know. 

Lita glanced at him sympathetically. Did the poor 
dear suppose she did not know just what he meant? 
She had suffered herself. Her mother often accused 
her of concealing things which she had tried repeatedly 
to tell; only her mother, with her mind running like a 
hound on some other idea, did not even hear. And yet 
on the other hand she had felt sympathetic when, not 
long before, her mother had delivered a short lecture on 
the treachery of silence; she had said—and quite truly 
—that a silence could be just as much of a lie as a spoken 
word. She wondered if she were a weak nature, agree¬ 
ing with everyone who spoke to her. 

At the hotel she found her father had ordered a special 
luncheon for her delight, composed of all the things he 
liked best himself. The regular hotel dinner, with its 
immense opportunities for choice, would have been a 
treat to Lita after the monotony of school fare; but she 
enjoyed the prestige that the special order gave them in 
the eyes of the dragoonlike head waitress, who never left 
their table. That was one of the amusing things about 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 19 

going out with her father. He had a quiet assumption of 
importance which made everyone think him important. 

They had been at table several minutes before he spoke. 
He said, “If you take so much sauce you lose the flavor 
of the fish.” 

“I like the flavor of the sauce best,” said Lita, and he 
smiled, a little sadly, as if he were at a loss to understand 
how his child could be such an utter barbarian. 

Conscious that she had not quite so much time as he 
thought she had, she hurried to the point and asked him 
what it was he wanted to discuss. He seemed to be think¬ 
ing deeply, which alarmed her; then he reached out and 
added a dash of pepper to his fish. 

“Oh,” he said, “I find I must go to Italy on business 
next summer. I wonder if you could arrange it with 
your mother so that you could go with me.” 

“Mercy!” exclaimed Lita. “I was afraid you were 
going to tell me you were going to be married again.” 

He looked up with a swift dark glance. 

“Who put that idea into your head?” he asked. 

“No one; it just occurred to me.” 

Where opposing affections exist, a lady, as much as a 
gentleman, is obliged to lie. 

“That was your mother’s idea,” said her father, and 
gave a short, bitter laugh, as if human depravity could 
hardly go lower than to have made such a suggestion. 

Well, Lita thought, perhaps her mother ought not to 
have said it; and yet, why not? Her father had re¬ 
married once. It made her feel old and cold, always to 
be obliged to weigh criticisms and complaints, to decide 


20 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


which of the two people she loved best in the world was 
right and which was wrong, every other minute. How 
she envied girls who could accept their parents as a unit! 

Seeing her father’s mind still occupied with his wrongs, 
she turned the conversation back to Italy. Of course, 
she would adore going—at least she would if her mother 
would agree to it. 

“Of course, we could not go otherwise,” said her 
father, and there was somehow in his tone the suggestion 
that he and his poor child were in the grip of an irrational 
and arbitrary power. After a moment he added, “And 
we’d stop in Paris on our way back and get you a lot of 
things.” He smiled—he had a delightful, merry smile, 
quite at variance to his habitual blankness. “I don’t 
suppose that idea is exactly repugnant to you?” 

It wasn’t, though Lita knew it was practically bribery. 
She adored shopping with her father. His method was 
simple. He went to the best shop and asked for their 
best things. If he liked them he bought them. If he 
didn’t like them he went to the next-best shop. There 
was no haggling, no last-minute doubts whether, since 
the expense was so great, she really needed to get the 
things after all. Her father in Paris! It was a delirious 
thought. 

“I should enjoy Paris with you, Pat,” she said. He 
smiled with a faint suggestion that others had felt the 
same way. “If only mother approves.” 

“I don’t see that there is anything to disapprove of, 
even for your mother, in a man’s taking his daughter to 
Paris.” 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 21 

4 ‘What I mean is if she is really cordial about it. I 
could not go if she weren’t cordial.” 

“Then,” said her father, “we may as well give it up 
at once. For, of course, your mother won’t be cordial. 
She won’t want you to go. She never wants you out of 
her sight if she can help it.” 

“Father, mother isn’t a bit selfish like that.” 

“I never said she was. It is natural she should want 
you to be with her. Please get it into your head, Lita, 
that I should never under any circumstances criticize your 
mother—least of all to you.” 

Lita looked at him reflectively. If he had been Aurelia 
she would have said “Bunk, my dear, and you know it.” 
That was the way she and Aurelia carried on their rela¬ 
tion—in the open. Candor cleared the air; but older 
people, Lita had found, did not really want the air 
cleared. They could not stand criticism; perhaps that 
was why they were always insisting that they did not 
criticize, when as a matter of fact they never did anything 
else. 

Luncheon pursued its delicious but somewhat leisurely 
way. Mr. Hazlitt lit a cigar and sent the coffee back to 
be heated. It was a pleasant moment. Lita was con¬ 
scious that he was treating her more as an equal com¬ 
panion than ever before. She was enjoying herself, and 
yet in the back of her mind was a distressing awareness 
that time was passing and she ought to be getting back to 
school to her mother. 

“The truth is,” her father was saying, “that as one 
gets older one loses the power, or perhaps the wish, to 


22 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


make new friends; and one clings to the old ties. I hope 
you will arrange eventually, when you are twenty-one, to 
spend at least half the year with me. I shall be in a 
position then to make some long expeditions—China and 
Patagonia, and I should like you to go with me.” 

Lita’s imagination took fire, but she said loyally, 
“But how about mother, Pat? I suppose she’s lonely 
too.” 

Mr. Hazlitt laughed shortly. 

“Your mother,” he said, “unless she has changed very 
much, probably does not spend one waking hour in the 
twenty-four alone. I doubt if she ever loses the power of 
making new friends—quite indiscriminately. And, after 
all, I am only asking for half your time.” 

“But, father, suppose I should marry?” 

Her father looked at her with startled eyes, as if she 
had suggested something unnatural and wrong. 

“Marry!” he said. “I hope you have no such idea in 
your head.” 

She had not. Indeed her immunity from the crushes 
which occupied so much of the time and attention of her 
schoolmates occasioned her some concern. She feared 
her nature was a cold one. She disclaimed the idea of 
marriage, except as she had observed it in common. 

“People do, you know,” she said. 

“A good many would be wiser if they didn’t,” said her 
father. “I am particularly opposed to young marriages.” 

He and her mother had married when they were young. 

Presently she was obliged to tell him that she must go. 
He did not gainsay her decision, but she saw he took it 
as meaning that she had not really enjoyed herself. Yet 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


23 


when she tried to say she had—that she was sorry to 
leave him—it kept sounding as if she were saying it was 
a bore to go back and walk to the station with her mother. 
If only she could be loyal to one parent without being 
disloyal to the other! 

She was a little bit late at the school. Her mother 
was just starting without her. 

“Oh, I understand,” she said, without listening to 
Lita’s explanation. “Very natural. You were enjoying 
yourself; you don’t need to explain.” 

Lita saw she was hurt but had determined to be nice 
about it. 

They started on their walk. First they crossed the 
athletic fields; then their way would lie through the school 
woods, and then across stony fields, and then they would 
come out on the macadam road to the station—about 
three miles across country. 

The Italian trip, which had seemed so simple and 
pleasant when her father mentioned it, now began to take 
on the appearance of a dark conspiracy. Lita thought 
that she would far rather give it up than mention it, only 
she had promised her father that she would speak of it 
that afternoon so that he might have plenty of time to 
make his arrangements. He was very particular about 
special cabins on a special boat. Oh, dear, with her 
mother’s feelings already a little hurt, it wasn’t going to be 
easy! Mrs. Hazlitt herself started conversation. 

“And so you had a delightful lunch?” she said, trying 
to be nice, but also trying to find out what it was her 
child’s father had wanted to discuss, for she was curious 
by nature. 


24 ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 

“Yes, very nice. Pat’s going to Italy next summer on 
business.” 

“Really?” said her mother, without special interest. 
“Some people’s business does take them to the nicest 
places.” 

Lita suddenly wondered how it would work if she forced 
these insinuations of her parents to their logical con¬ 
clusions. 

“Don’t you believe father really has business in Italy?” 
she inquired mildly. 

“Of course he has if he says so. What funny things 
you say, Lita! Your father is one of the most accurate 
people I ever knew—if he makes an assertion. Well, if 
he goes to Italy that will leave us entirely free. I 
thought perhaps it would amuse you if I took a house at 
Southampton this summer. Of course, when I was 
young Newport was the place; but now I’m told the 
young people prefer—” 

“But, mother,” said Lita, and she felt just the way she 
did before she dived into cold water, “he wants to take 
me with him.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt merely laughed. 

“A likely idea!” she said. 

“And I told him I would ask you how you felt about it.” 

Her mother stopped short and looked at her. Then 
she said, and each syllable dropped lower and lower like 
pebbles falling down a well, “In fact—you want—to go.” 

It was hard to be truthful. 

“Well, yes, in a way, I should like to go; at least I 
thought so when Pat spoke of it.” She thought she 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 25 

ought to go as far as this, but even this moderate 
statement was fatal. 

“You shall not go!” said her mother, her eyes begin¬ 
ning to enlarge as they did in moments of emotion until 
they seemed to fill her whole face. “I won’t hear of it— 
or go—go if you want to. I never want anyone to stay 
with me as a duty.” 

“Mother dear, I don’t care. I don’t really want to 
go; it was just an idea.” 

“Do at least be honest about it. Of course you want 
to go, or you would not have promised to try to work me 
round to agreeing to it—conspiring together. No, of 
course I don’t mean that. Nothing could be more natural 
at your age than to snatch at any pleasure that comes. 
I don’t blame you—a child—but him—trying to steal 
you—” 

Her nostrils began to tremble on her quick intaken 
breaths. 

“Father did not mean—” 

“Of course you don’t think so; but you don’t know him 
as well as I do,” said her mother. “I suppose you’ve 
utterly forgotten how little he cared for you when you 
were a child; but now that all the care and responsibility 
is over—” 

She simply could not go on. 

Lita, a little constrained by this display of emotion, 
said, smiling, “It’s nice to know I’m no care, mother.” 
But as an effort at the light touch it was not a success. 

Mrs. Hazlitt did not even hear her. She went on: 
“Now he’s ready to charm you and tempt you away so 


26 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


as to leave me alone again. Oh, never love anyone, Lita, 
when you grow up! IPs all pain. Be like your father; 
take what you want and go on your own horrible way, 
leaving destruction behind you.” She covered her face 
with her hands, not because she was crying, but to hide 
the chattering of her teeth; and then as a new idea swept 
over her she dropped them again and continued: “IPs 
all my own fault. I’ve been too absurdly honorable. 
I’ve brought you up to respect and admire him, when 
all the weapons were in my hands and I might just as 
well have taught you to despise him as he deserves. I 
wish I had. Oh, how I wish I had! I’ve never said a 
word against your father, have I, Lita?” 

“Never—never, dearest,” said Lita. She thought to 
herself, “They are making me a liar between them, but 
I couldn’t say anything else to her just now.” 

She was not a prig, but she could hardly help feeling 
that sense of superiority—of being in control of the situa¬ 
tion—that the calm are so apt to experience in the 
presence of turgid emotions. 

Mrs. Hazlitt suddenly turned back to her. 

“But you don’t really want to go with him?” she said 
as hopefully as if a minute before she had not considered 
the contrary as proved. 

“No, mother, I don’t.” 

“These silent people! Fortunately I know him like a 
book. He’s probably been plotting this for months. I 
see what he’s up to. He wants to get things so that by 
the time that you’re twenty-one you’ll be willing to 
spend some of your time with him; but you wouldn’t do 
that, would you?” 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 27 

“Nothing could ever come between you and me, mother. 
That’s the solid comfort of a mo—” 

“You don’t answer what I say; you are keeping back 
some of your thoughts, just like your father. Oh, I 
couldn’t bear it if you grew like him! No one is ever 
so candid as I am. What is in your mind?” 

“Nothing, mother. It crossed my mind that I might 
marry some day.” 

“Marry!” Her mother’s tone, given the difference of 
sex and temperament, was identical with her father’s; as 
if marriage were a crime other people’s daughters might 
commit, but not her lovely child. “What in heaven’s 
name are you talking about, Lita?” 

“Well, mother, you were mar—” 

“And do you quote my case? Marriage! No, not 
until you are twenty-five at least. Don’t mention the 
word to me!” 

At least there was one subject on which her parents 
were in hearty agreement—the first, as far as she could 
remember, that she had ever found. They did not want 
her to marry. But, she reflected, as she joggled home 
alone on the back seat of the school flivver, was it entirely 
interest in her welfare that made them opposed? Wasn’t 
it rather that they needed her to fill the gap in their lives 
that their own separation had made? This, she thought, 
was the real objection to divorce—that it made parents 
too emotionally dependent on their children. Suppose 
she died. She considered the possibility steadily. Why, 
yes, if she died they would probably come together in 
their grief. 

She saw a little picture of herself in the infirmary, with 


28 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


her parents standing hand in hand at the foot of the bed. 
And yet one really could not commit suicide in order to 
reconcile one’s parents. 

Well, Italy was now out of the question; Italy was 
canned. She must write to her father immediately that 
she could not go, and she must do it so as not to make her 
mother seem selfish, and so as not to hurt her father’s 
feelings. Some letter, she thought. She saw herself 
walking the deck of an enormous steamer, hanging on his 
arm, ordering meals in amusing restaurants, the Paris 
shops gleaming with hats and jewels and beaded bags and 
fans, all for her. Of course it was natural that she 
wanted to go. . . . 

The car stopped at the door of the main school build¬ 
ing, and she sprang out, free at last to give her attention 
to Aurelia. Strangely enough, though she did not love 
her friend so much as she did her parents, she worried 
more about her, as one equal about another. 

The infirmary, a neat white cottage, was set in a re¬ 
mote corner of the grounds. As Lita bounded up the 
steps she met Miss Barton coming out. 

Every head of a school, perhaps every head of an insti¬ 
tution, perhaps everyone in the world, acquires an arti¬ 
ficial manner to serve as a method of holding off crises. 
Some adopt the genial, some the meditative, some the 
stern. Miss Barton had chosen the intellectually airy. 
As a problem was presented to her she would say “Ah, 
yes,” with a faint, calm smile, as if that special problem 
were so easy and familiar she might float away to some¬ 
thing more stimulating without remembering to give you 
the answer. She was a tall, good-looking woman, pale 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


29 


eyed, pale skinned, with thick, crinkly gray hair, parted 
and drawn down to a knot at the nape of her neck; it 
looked exactly like a wig, but wasn’t. She stopped Lita. 

“Oh,” she said with her habitual gay casualness, “we 
have been looking for you. Don’t be alarmed, but it 
seems that Aurelia has appendicitis.” 

“Yes I felt pretty sure she had,” answered Lita. 

Miss Barton did not think it worth while to contradict 
this absurd assertion. She merely smiled on one side of 
her face and replied that the doctors themselves had only 
decided it fifteen minutes before. It appeared that 
Aurelia was eager to see her friend before the operation. 

“She’s in Room 11,” said Miss Barton. “They will 
operate as soon as they can get things ready. Don’t 
alarm her. There is no risk nowaaays, nothing to be 
excited about.” 

“Is she excited?” 

“I think not.” 

“Of course she isn’t.” 

It is hard sometimes to be patient with older people, 
playing their own roles so busily they lose all sense of 
other individualities. Aurelia, Lita imagined, was 
probably the calmest person in the infirmary. 

In Room 11 she found her roommate lying on her side, 
very pale, with her dark hair dragged back and tightly 
braided. The nurse was moving in and out and the two 
girls were practically alone, while the following dialogue 
took place. 

“Pain?” 

“Oh, my!” 

“Poor kid!” 


30 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“Lita, in my shoe box there are five pictures of Gene 
Valentine, and a note—” 

“From him?” 

“No, dodo, from me—a rough draft. Get them, will 
you?” 

“You bet!” 

“Thanks.” 

Then the nurse came in to say that everything was 
ready, and Lita was hurried out of the room. She kept 
telling herself that there was nothing to worry about, but 
her heart was beating oddly. 

In the hall a young man was standing; or rather, from 
Lita’s point of view, an older man, for he must have been 
twenty-eight or nine. He was attired in a long white robe 
rather like a cook—or an angel. The sight of him 
dressed thus for his work upset Lita and made her feel 
like crying; in fact she did cry. 

“Don’t you worry,” said the young man in a deep voice 
—a splendid, rolling, velvet sort of voice. “We’ve got 
the best man in the country to operate; there’s no danger.” 

“Is that you—the best man in the country?” 

He laughed. 

“To be candid, no,” he said. “I’m Doctor Burroughs’ 
assistant. He’s the best there is. There is nothing to 
cry about.” 

“If people only cried when there was something to cry 
about,” said Lita; and added in an exclamation of the 
deepest concern, “Oh, goodness! ” 

Her tone alarmed the young man. 

“What is it?” 

“I haven’t got a handkerchief.” 


ARE PAREN.TS PEOPLE? 


31 


He lifted his apron and from the pocket of his blue 
serge trousers he produced an unfolded handkerchief, 
which he gave her. 

“I have a little sister just about your age,” he said. 

Lita’s face was in the handkerchief as she asked. 
“How old?” 

“Let me see,” said the doctor. “I think she must be 
twelve.” 

A slight sound that might have been a sob escaped 
from Lita, and the doctor was so moved with compassion 
that he patted her on the head. Then the door of Room 
11 opened and his professional duties called him away. 

A moment later he came out, bearing Aurelia away to 
the operating room, and Lita went into Room 11 to wait. 
He promised as he passed to come and tell her as soon as 
it was over. 

She felt perfectly calm now as she sat grasping his 
handkerchief in her hand. It was fine and embroidered 
in two letters—L. D. She ran over the L names and 
found she liked nearly all of them—Lawrence, Lionel, 
Leopold—not so good, though Leo was all right—Lewis— 
oh, of course, it was Lewis! She said the word aloud. 

How still the house was! Now they were probably 
giving Aurelia the anaesthetic; now— 

There was no use speculating about what D stood for. 
He thought she was twelve, did he? She put her hand up 
to where his had rested on the top of her head. She could 
not begin to make hers cover the same area. He must 
have a large hand. Well, that was all right; he was a 
large man. She could see his face before her, smooth as 
to skin and rather jutty as to outline of brows and jaw, 


32 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


and his heavy, thick, short, black hair, almost like an 
Indian’s in texture. And she had thought that she pre¬ 
ferred blond men. L. D.—Lita D. . . . She wondered 
if she ought to go immediately and hunt up those photo¬ 
graphs of Aurelia’s. What a time it would make if they 
should be found before she got there! How long would 
this take—an hour? Would he really come back himself, 
or would he send that light-hearted, gray-haired nurse 
who looked like Marie Antoinette? If he patted her on 
the head he might even—Lawrence—Leonard— 

Suddenly he was in the room again, smelling horribly 
of disinfectants. 

“It’s all right—all over,” he said. He began to pluck 
ineffectually at the back buttons of his white robe. 
“Help me, there’s a good child,” he said, stooping so that 
she could reach. 

She undid the buttons, the garment slipped to the floor, 
and he stood revealed as a normal young man in his 
shirt and dark blue serge trousers. He began rolling 
down his shirt sleeves, talking as he did so. 

“Your friend has good nerve—brave and calm. Your 
sister? No? What’s your name?” 

“Hazlitt.” 

Too kind to smile at this infantile assumption of im¬ 
portance, his eyes did laugh a little, but he said, “I 
meant your first name. 

“Lita. What’s yours?” 

“Luke— Well, Lita, I’m going to write to Effle about 
you. Wait! Where are you off to in such a hurry?” 

She could not tell him that she was going to destroy the 
patient’s compromising correspondence. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


33 


She said mysteriously, “I must go. You’ve been so 
kind. Good-by.” For one tense moment she thought 
he was going to kiss her. 

Evidently there is such a thing as thought transference, 
for as she drew back she heard him saying, “No, certainly 
not. I should not dream of kissing a lady of your mature 
years.” 

“You never kiss ladies of mature years?” murmured 
Lita in the manner of a six-year child. 

“Well, I know how Effie feels on the subject. She 
boxed the ears of our local congressman for a salute which 
he offered merely as a vote getter. It was a terrible shock 
to him.” 

“You have a shock coming to you ” she answered 
gently, and left the room. 

She had a shock of her own on entering her bedroom, 
for Miss Jones, the house mistress, was already busy with 
Aurelia’s bureau drawers. Had she or had she not lifted 
the top of the shoe box? It was necessary to act quickly; 
but fortunately Miss Jones was young and pleasant and 
easy to get round. If it had been Miss Barton— The 
school often commented with a sort of wondering irrita¬ 
tion on the fact that in dealing with girls Miss Barton was 
not absolutely an idiot. 

“Halloo, Jonesy dear,” said Lita with a soft friendli¬ 
ness which in pupils is somewhat like the bearing of gifts 
by Greeks. “She’s all right. The operation’s over, the 
doctor told me.” 

Miss Jones was winding pink ribbon on a card, and 
answered, “Oh, isn’t he wonderful? Of all the great 
men I ever met Doctor Burroughs inspires—” 


34 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“It wasn’t Doctor Burroughs. It was the other one, 
his assistant—what’s his name? It begins with a D.” 

But Miss Jones didn’t know anything about the assist¬ 
ant, and drew Lita’s attention from a subject tolerably 
absorbing by asking if she knew where Aurelia kept her 
bedroom slippers. 

“Look here, Jonesy,” said Lita. “Who is that queer¬ 
looking man—like a tramp—on the piazza downstairs?” 

“I’ll run down and see,” said Miss Jones. 

She was small, but there was something about her 
manner which would have made anything but a mythical 
tramp tremble. 

When she had gone Lita opened the shoe box and found 
five large photographs of Eugene Valentine lying on top 
of the shoes: one in the aviator’s uniform of his new 
play; one in his coronation robes in his last success, The 
King is Bored; and the other three just Eugene Valentine, 
with the light shining on the ridges of his wavy light hair. 
He was an awfully good-looking man, Lita thought—if 
you liked blonds. She laid the photographs under the 
paper in the bureau drawer Miss Jones had finished 
tidying. The draft of the letter had slipped down among 
the shoes, and Lita had only time to thrust it into the 
pocket of the coat she was wearing before Miss Jones was 
back again, saying that the tramp must have gone away. 

Supper that evening was exciting. The great Doctor 
Burroughs had driven magnificently back to town in his 
car before Aurelia was fairly out of the anaesthetic; but 
he had left his assistant behind him—a clever young 
fellow. Miss Barton murmured she hoped he was tactful, 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


35 


discreet; one had to be careful in a school—parents, you 
know. Doctor Burroughs assured her she need give her¬ 
self no concern; Doctor Dacer was quite safe—minded 
his own business—no trouble with the nurses or any¬ 
thing like that—just the sort of young man to leave in a 
girls’ school. Even the wisest may be betrayed into 
sweeping statements when in a hurry to get away to 
Sunday dinner. 

Lita, as chairman of the self-government committee, 
sat at the head of one of the senior tables—a conspicuous 
position. The girls were all in their places before Miss 
Barton came in with the tactful and discreet young fellow. 
It was the school’s first view of him, and Lita could hear 
the comments of her peers rising about her: 

“Looks a little like Doug.” 

“Isn’t Aurelia the lucky stiff?” 

“What are the symptoms of appendicitis? I feel them 
coming on.” 

She tried not to look at Miss Barton’s table, and when 
she did she met his eye. He nodded and smiled with open 
friendliness; and bending toward Miss Jones, with his 
eyes still on hers, asked quite obviously for details about 
his little friend. Lita saw the smile fade from his face 
as he received them. Then a quite different smile 
flickered across his face; the smile of a man who says to 
himself, “To have even mentioned kissing the chairman of 
the self-government committee!” 

As they were all moving out of the dining room again, 
Miss Barton called Lita to her. 

“You will be glad to know,” she said, “that Doctor 


36 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Dacer says Aurelia will be up within two weeks— 
no complications—no danger. This is Lita Hazlitt, 
Doctor Dacer, Aurelia’s best friend.” 

The doctor showed some of his advertised caution by 
merely bowing, but Lita answered, “Oh, yes, Doctor 
Dacer was so kind this afternoon.” And looking up at 
him she asked, “Have you written to Effie yet?” 

“Not yet,” he returned politely; but below the level of 
the teacher’s eyes a clenched fist made a distinctly menac¬ 
ing gesture in Lita’s direction, and the corner of 
Lita’s mouth, which occasionally created a dimple, just 
trembled. The doctor turned to Miss Barton, and it 
would be hard to imagine anything more professional than 
his manner as he said, “My patient seems to be very de¬ 
pendent on Miss Hazlitt. She was just asking for her. 
I think it would be a good idea if Miss Hazlitt could be in 
and out of the infirmary a good deal during the next few 
days.” 

“Of course, of course,” said Miss Barton, who, though 
trained to distrust girls, was not trained to distrust 
doctors. “Aurelia is so alone, poor child.” And lower¬ 
ing her voice as she moved away, with the doctor bending 
politely so as not to miss a syllable, Lita could hear a 
murmur: 

“These terrible divorces! Do you know that over 
twenty of my girls—” 

Lita found herself excused from sacred reading that 
evening so that she might sit with her friend. 

Yet oddly enough, when she reached the infirmary the 
white-haired nurse seemed surprised to see her, and said 
that the doctor had given the patient something to make 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


37 

her sleep before he had gone to supper, and that she 
ought not to wake until morning—at least they hoped not. 

But at that moment Dacer came out of another room, 
where he had evidently been smoking a pipe, and said, 
“Oh, well, stick round a little. She might wake up.” 

The nurse gave him a sharp look; and then, being 
really discreet and tactful, retired into Room 11 and shut 
the door. Lita and the doctor were left facing each 
other in the hall. 

“Let’s go out,” he said, “where I can smoke. It’s a 
good sort of evening—with a moon.” 

“Mercy!” answered Lita. “How do you think a girls’ 
school is run? I couldn’t do that.” 

“I thought the chairman of the self-government 
committee could do anything.” 

“On the contrary, she has to be particularly careful, 
and not go about exposing herself to being patted on the 
head.” 

“She was lucky worse than that didn’t happen, mas¬ 
querading as an infant.” And then, without the slightest 
pause, but with a complete change of tone, Lita heard him 
saying: “No, I’m sorry; but I think it would be better 
not tonight. . . . Ah, Miss Barton, I was just saying to 
Miss Hazlitt that as the patient had fallen asleep it 
would be better not to disturb her again tonight.” 

“Of course,” said Miss Barton, who, it appeared, was 
coming upstairs behind Lita’s back. “I think if you ran 
back to the study, Lita, you’d get in for the end of the 
reading.” 

And as she turned obediently away she heard Miss 
Barton suggesting that if Doctor Dacer found the in- 


38 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


firmary dull, the sitting room in her cottage was at his 
service. No, Doctor Dacer had a good deal of work to 
do. Lita smiled to herself. He had not seemed so busy 
a few minutes before. 

She had never been in love—never even deeply in¬ 
terested before. She had looked with surprise and envy 
on her classmates; not only Aurelia, with her devouring 
passion for Valentine; but Carrie Waldron, the senior 
president, who worshiped a dark-eyed motion-picture 
actor; and Doris Payne, who loved a great violinist to 
whom she never expected to speak The authorities were 
terribly down on this sort of thing; but Lita, who knew 
more about it than the authorities, was not sure. Would 
Carrie be studying Spanish at odd moments so as to know 
more about her idol’s great bull-fighter part—would Doris 
work so hard at her music—would Aurelia be learning 
Romeo and Juliet by heart as she did her hair in the morn¬ 
ing—Romeo was a part Valentine was always contemplat¬ 
ing—if it were not for love? More, would Miss Barton’s 
course in English constitutional history be so interesting 
if Miss Barton did not feel—as the school had discovered 
—a romantic passion for Oliver Cromwell? Certainly 
not! 

Her mother thought these excitements vulgar. She 
said if girls must be silly, why not be silly about people 
in their own class of life? But Lita explained that the 
boys they knew were not so thrilling. Had her mother, 
she asked, never bought the picture of an actor? 
“Never!” said her mother with conviction; but Aunt 
Minnie, who happened to be there, said, “Nonsense, Alita! 
You had a picture of Sothern as the Prisoner of Zenda.” 


39 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Mrs. Hazlitt said that she hadn't, and that was entirely 
different anyhow. 

The only result of the conversation was that Mrs. 
Hazlitt began to suspect Lita of some such ill-bred pas¬ 
sion—most unjustly. The whole subject had had merely 
a theoretical interest for Lita. She was too practical to 
be fired by these intangible heroes—dream, dead or 
dramatic. 

But now, even that first Sunday, as she stepped out of 
the infirmary into the bare March moonlight, she found 
that real life could hold the same thrill for her that 
dreams did for these others. 

“And that," she said to herself, “is where I have the 
best of it." 


II 



ITA had developed a technic by which she slept 


through the rising gong and for the next twenty- 


* five minutes, allowing herself thus exactly five 
minutes to get up, dress and reach the dining room. But 
the morning after her friend’s operation she woke with 
the gong, and five minutes later was on her way to the 
infirmary, first tying her tie and then smoothing down her 
hair as she went. 

As she ran up the stairs of the infirmary, a voice— 
whose owner must have recognized the almost inaudible 
patter of her feet—called to her from the small dining 
room of the cottage. She put her face, flushed with run¬ 
ning, round the jamb of the door and saw Doctor Dacer 
seated at breakfast. The nurse was toasting bread on an 


40 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


electric toaster, and he was spreading a piece, just finished, 
with a thick crimson jam. “Damson,” Lita said to 
herself. 

He looked at her. 

“Youth’s a great thing,” he said. 

“So the old are always saying,” Lita answered. “But 
there’s a catch in it; they get back at you for being 
young.” 

“Does that mean you think I’m old?” Dacer asked 
patiently; and the nurse with the white hair exclaimed to 
herself “Goodness!” as if to her they both seemed about 
the same age. 

Lita cocked her head on one side. 

“Well,” she said, “you are too old to be my equal—I 
mean contemporary. I mean contemporary,” she added 
as they both laughed. Dacer, with a more complete an¬ 
swer, gave her the piece of toast he had been preparing. 
It was delicious—cool and smooth and sweet on top, and 
hot and buttery below. Lita consumed it in silence, and 
then with a deep sigh as she sucked a drop of jam from 
her forefinger, she said, “How noble that was! Some¬ 
times I’m afraid I’m greedy.” 

“Of course you are,” said Dacer, as if greed were a 
splendid quality. “Sit down and have some coffee. . . . 
Have you been introduced to Miss Waverley? She hates 
men.” 

“Goodness!” said Miss Waverley, glancing over her 
shoulder, as if it were mildly amusing that a man should 
think he knew anything about how she felt. 

“Or is it only doctors?” Dacer went on. 

“Men patients are worse,” said Miss Waverley. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 41 

“Don’t go away,” said Dacer to Lita. “You are always 
going away.” 

“I came to see Aurelia.” 

“I know, but it’s customary to discuss the case first with 
the surgeon—in some detail too. Sit down.” 

But she would not do that; her first duty was to her 
friend. She knew Aurelia would want to know that the 
photographs and the letter were safe. She stayed by her 
bedside until it was time to leap downstairs and run across 
the campus to the dining room, her appetite merely edged 
by the toast and jam. 

Monday was a busy day for Lita. Immediately after 
luncheon her committee met and went over the reports of 
the monitors for the week; and then there was basket ball 
for two hours, and then study. The tennis courts were 
near the athletic field, and as Lita played with the first 
team she could hear a deep voice booming out the 
score as Doctor Dacer and Miss Jones played set after 
set. Miss Jones had been tennis champion of her col¬ 
lege the year before. Lita sent out a young scout to bring 
her word how the games were going, and learned that 
Dacer was winning. He must be pretty good, then— 
Jonesy was no slouch. She would have taunted him in 
the evening, when she went to say good night to Aurelia, 
if he had let himself be beaten by Jonesy. 

Every Monday evening Miss Fraser, the English 
teacher, read aloud to the senior members of her class. 
Miss Fraser was something of a problem, because she was 
so much more a lover of literature than a teacher. She 
inspired the girls with a fine enthusiasm for the best; but 
in the process she often incited them to read gems of the 


42 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


language which their parents considered unsuited to their 
youth. Shakspere she read quite recklessly, sometimes 
forgetting to use the expurgated edition. When Miss 
Barton suggested pleasantly that perhaps Antony and 
Cleopatra was not quite the most appropriate of the plays, 
Miss Fraser answered, “Don’t they read worse in the 
newspapers in bad prose?” 

At present she was conservatively engaged in reading 
Much Ado About Nothing. No one could object to that, 
she said. She made it seem witty and contemporary. 

Lita slipped over to the infirmary between supper and 
the reading to bid Aurelia good night. Dacer wasn't 
there. She stayed, talking a few minutes with Aurelia, 
who was well enough to hear about the tramp and the bed¬ 
room slippers and a little school gossip. Lita asked cas¬ 
ually where the doctor was, but no one seemed to know v 

When a little later she entered Miss Fraser’s study she 
found to her surprise that he was there, settled in a cor¬ 
ner. Miss Fraser explained that Doctor Dacer was the 
son of an old friend of hers; he had been kind enough to 
say that it would be a pleasure to him to stay and hear the 
reading. She need not have felt under the necessity of 
apologizing to the six or seven members of her class. 
They felt no objection to his presence. 

Lita was knitting a golf sweater for her father. She 
could do it at school, but not at home, for her mother was 
so discouraging about it. She had already objected to its 
color, shape and pattern; had felt sure that Lita’s father 
wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment, and wouldn’t wear 
anything that did not come from a good shop. Probably 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


43 


after all Lita’s trouble he’d give it to his manservant. 
But Lita did not think he would. 

The nice thing about knitting is that it leaves the eyes 
disengaged—at least to an expert, and Lita was expert. 
She resolved that she would not look at Dacer; and did 
not for the first half hour or so, for she had a comfortable 
knowledge that he was looking at her. Then, just once, 
their eyes met. It was while Miss Fraser was reading 
these lines: 

But nature never fram'd a woman's heart 
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice : 

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, 
Misprising what they look on; and her wit 
Values itself so highly, that to her 
All matter else seems weak. 

She cannot love - 

Holding her glance, he seemed to nod his head as if to 
say that was a perfect description of her. Could he mean 
that? Did he mean that? She averted her eyes hastily, 
and when she looked back again he had folded his arms 
and was staring off over everybody’s head, very blank 
and magnificent, unaware of the existence of little school¬ 
girls. Had she offended him? 

She decided that the next morning at the infirmary, 
while she was eating his toast and jam, she would ask him 
a pointed question about the character of Beatrice. She 
gave a good deal of time to framing the question— 
wasted time, for when she reached the infirmary she 
found he had gone—had taken a late train to New York 


44 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


the night before. Lita remembered he had looked at his 
watch once or twice toward the end of the reading. 

“Yes,” said the nurse cheerfully, “we’re doing so well 
we don’t need him.” It was the second nurse. Miss 
Waverley had gone with the doctor. 

Lita’s frightened eyes sought Aurelia’s, who framed the 
words: “Back Thursday.” 

She framed them as if two—almost three days were 
nothing. Lita, who knew no more of the Einstein theory 
than the name, discovered that time was relative; that 
Tuesday morning took what in old times she would have 
considered several weeks in passing; and that each study 
period—in the words of William James—lay down like a 
cow on the doorstep and refused to get up and go on. 
The truth was that time had never been time to Lita; it 
had been action. Now it was emptiness, something to be 
filled; and yet she couldn’t fill it; it was a bottomless 
abyss. Worse still, she couldn’t concentrate. She went 
to the blackboard to do an original—a simple thing she 
would have tossed off in a minute in old times—and 
couldn’t think how to begin; she, the best geometer in 
the class. This was serious, and it was queer. Lita 
couldn’t, as she said to Aurelia, get the hang of it. 
Time being her problem—this sudden unexpected accu¬ 
mulation of time on her hands—she might have been ex¬ 
pected to spend it doing the practical, obvious things that 
had to be done. Not at all. She was incapable of exer¬ 
tion. She could not study; and even the letter to her 
father, saying the Italian trip was impossible, was never 
written. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


45 


She had a letter from him Wednesday morning in 
which he assumed that she had not been able to bring her 
mother to any conclusion. He said he would call her up 
when she came to town on Friday. Perhaps she would 
dine with him on Saturday, and do a play. Ordinarily 
this would have seemed an agreeable prospect; but now, 
since it was farther away than Thursday, it had no real 
existence. 

Late Wednesday afternoon her unalterable decision 
not to discuss Doctor Dacer with anyone broke down, and 
she told Aurelia the whole story. It took an hour—their 
meeting, everything that he had said, done and looked, 
and all that she had felt. She paid a great price, how¬ 
ever, for this enjoyment—and she did enjoy it—for after¬ 
ward the whole experience became more a narrative and 
less a vital memory. 

Thursday morning was the worst of all. Thursday 
morning was simply unbearable, until about noon, when 
she heard the whistle of the first possible New York 
train. After that things went very well until about five, 
when she had a moment to run over to see Aurelia and 
heard that the doctor had not come—had decided not to 
come until the next day, Friday. 

As far as she was concerned, he might as well not have 
come at all. All her joy in the anticipated meeting was 
dead; but this might possibly have reawakened, except 
that on Friday she did not have a minute until the three- 
o’clock train, which she was taking to New York. Of 
course, she could develop a cold or some mysterious ail¬ 
ment which would keep her at school over Sunday, even 


46 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


in the infirmary; but deceit was not attractive to her; 
though, as she would have said herself, she was not 
narrow-minded about it. 

The girls of Elbridge Hall were not supposed to make 
the trip to New York by themselves; but sometimes a 
prudent senior—and who is prudent if not the chairman 
of the self-government committee?—might be put on the 
train at Elbridge by a teacher and sent off alone, on the 
telephoned promise of a parent to meet her on her arrival 
at the Grand Central. 

When, under the chaperonage of Jonesy, Lita stepped 
out of the school flivver at the station she saw that Doctor 
Dacer was there before her. He must have come up in a 
morning train, seen his patient and walked to the station. 
Wild possibilities rose at once in the girl’s mind. Could 
he have known from Aurelia? Could he have arranged— 
No, for he took no interest in her arrival; hardly 
glanced in her direction. He was smoking, and when the 
train came he got into the smoking car without so much 
as glancing back to see where Jonesy was bestowing Lita. 

The train, which was a slow one, was empty. Lita 
settled herself by a window and opened her geometry. 
She said to herself: 

“I simply will not sit and watch the door. If he means 
to come he’ll come, and my watching won’t change things 
one way or the other.” 

She set her little jaw and turned to Monday’s lesson: 
“To prove that similar triangles are to each other as the 
squares of the medians drawn to their homologous sides.” 
The words conveyed absolutely nothing to her. She 
read them three times. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


47 


the problem—she couldn’t even think about it. She 
drew two similar triangles. They seemed to sit side by 
side like a cat and a kitten. She gave them whiskers and 
tails. Then, annoyed with herself, she produced a ruler 
and constructed a neat figure. She tried reading the 
theorem again, this time in a conversational tone, as if it 
were the beginning of a story: “Similar triangles are to 
each other—” 

The door opened, letting in the roar of the train and a 
disagreeable smell of coal smoke. 

“I will not look up,” thought Lita; “I will not! I will 
not!” And raising her eyes she saw that Dacer was 
there. She smiled not so much in greeting as from pure 
joy. 

He hadn’t wasted much time. He took her books and 
bag from the seat beside her and put them on the rack. 
Then he sat down and said, “Isn’t it dangerous to let 
such little girls travel by themselves?” 

She found speech difficult between her heart’s beating 
too fast and her breath’s coming too slow, but she did 
manage to say, “What does Effie do?” 

“Just what you do—she expects me to be on hand to 
look out for her.” 

“I didn’t expect you.” 

“No? Can it be you are not such a clever girl as 
teacher always thought?” 

“I thought you were spending the night at Elbridge.” 

“So did I when I arrived, but my plans changed. I 
found that it would be better for me to take the three- 
o’clock to town and go back on Sunday afternoon, by 
the—what is the train that we take back on Sunday?” 


48 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


It was almost too serious for jests, and Lita said in a 
voice that just didn’t tremble that she took the 4:08. 

Life is not often just right, not only in the present, but 
promising in forty-eight hours to be just as good or better. 
Lita spent two wonderful hours. First they talked about 
Aurelia—her courage, her loneliness, her parents, divorce 
in general—and then Lita found herself telling him the 
whole story of her own position in regard to her parents. 
Even to Aurelia, with whom she talked so frankly, she 
had never told the whole story—her own deep emotional 
reactions. She found to her surprise that it was easier 
to tell a story of an intimate nature to this stranger of an 
opposite sex than to her lifelong friend. He understood 
so perfectly. He did not blame them; if he had she 
would have felt called on to defend them; and he did 
not blame her; if he had she would have been forced into 
attacking them. He just listened, and seemed to think it 
was a normal and deeply interesting bit of life. 

He interrupted her once to say, “But you must remem¬ 
ber that they are people as well as parents.” 

It seemed to her an inspired utterance. She did not 
always remember that. She offered the excuse: “Yes, 
but I don’t mind their being divorced. Only why do they 
hate each other so?” 

“How do you know they hate each other?” 

Lita thought this was a queer thing to say after all that 
she had told him—almost stupid. She explained again: 
They were always abusing each other; nothing the other 
did was right; neither could bear her to speak well of— 

“They sound to me,” said Dacer, “as if they were still 
fond of each other.” Then, as Lita just stared at him, he 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 49 

went on: “Didn’t you know that? The only people it’s 
any fun to quarrel with are the people you love.” 

“Oh, no.” 

“Well, I’m glad you haven’t found it out as yet, but it’s 
true.” 

“I never quarrel,” said Lita. 

“You will some day. I expect to quarrel a lot with my 
wife.” 

“I shall never quarrel with my husband.” 

“No? Well, perhaps I’m wrong then.” 

She was angry at herself for glancing up so quickly to 
see what he could possibly mean by that except—he was 
looking at her gravely. 

“Look here!” he said. “That’s a mistake about Italy. 
You don’t want to go to Italy next summer.” 

She was aware of two contradictory impressions during 
the entire journey—one that this was the most extraordi¬ 
nary and dramatic event, and that no heroine in fiction 
had ever such an adventure; and the other that it was 
absolutely inevitable, and that she was now for the first 
time a normal member of the human species. 

Nothing in the whole experience thrilled her more than 
the calm, almost martial way in which he said as they 
were getting off the train at the Grand Central, “Now 
we’ll get a taxi.” 

She was obliged to explain to him that they couldn’t; 
her mother would be at the gate waiting for her—she 
always was. 

Only this time she wasn’t. 

Meeting trains in the Grand Central, though it has 
not the phrenetic difficulty of meeting trains in the Penn- 


50 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


sylvania Station, where you must watch two crowded 
stairways and a disgorging elevator in three different di¬ 
rections, is not made too easy. To meet a train in the 
Grand Central you must be in two widely separated spots 
at the same time. 

Mrs. Hazlitt, approaching the bulletin board through 
devious subterranean routes, was caught in a stampede 
of those hurrying to meet a belated Boston express; and 
when at last she wormed her way to the front she saw 
that the impressive official with the glasses well down on 
his nose and the extraordinary ability for making neat 
figures had written down Track 12 for Lita’s train. She 
turned liked a hunted animal; and at the moment when 
Lita and Dacer were emerging from the gate Mrs. Hazlitt 
was running from a point far to the west of Vanderbilt 
Avenue to a track almost at Lexington. It was five 
o’clock, and many heavier and more determined people 
were running for their trains, so that she had a good 
many collisions and apologies before she reached the gate 
where her daughter ought to have been. 

The last passenger, carrying a bunch of flowers and a 
cardboard box tied up with two different kinds of string, 
was just staggering through on oddly shaped flat feet. 
Everyone else had disappeared. Mrs. Hazlitt questioned 
the gateman. Had he seen a small young lady all alone 
who seemed to be looking for someone? The gateman 
said that he could not say he had, but would not care to 
say he had not. He possessed to perfection the railroad 
man’s art of not telling a passenger anything he doesn’t 
have to tell. His manner irritated Mrs. Hazlitt. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 51 

“I suppose you know,” she said, “that you have horrible 
arrangements for meeting trains.” 

“If some of us had our way we wouldn’t have any 
arrangements at all,” answered the gateman. 

This shocked Mrs. Hazlitt; it seemed so autocratic. 
She opened her eyes to their widest and felt she must 
argue the matter out with him. 

“Do you mean,” she asked, “that you would not let 
people meet trains?” 

“I would not,” said the gateman calmly, and having 
locked his gate he went his way. 

This had taken a few minutes, and by the time Mrs. 
Hazlitt had gone back to the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance 
and found her car and driven home, Lita was already in 
the library—alone. 

One of the disadvantages experienced by people who 
express themselves quickly is that while they are explain¬ 
ing how everything happened the silent people of the 
world are making up their minds how much they will 
tell. Mrs. Hazlitt was talking as she entered the room. 

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” she was saying. “Don’t let’s 
ever tell Miss Barton. I wasn’t really late—at least I 
would not have been if I had not had to run miles and 
miles, knocking down commuters as I went. And do you 
know what a gateman said to me, Lita, when I found I 
had missed you? That people oughtn’t to meet trains. 
I could have killed him. I don’t suppose you were 
frightened though. I suppose you took a taxi?” 

“Yes,” said Lita. 

She had had every intention of telling her mother every- 


52 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


thing—well, certainly that she had met Doctor Dacer on 
the train and that he had been kind enough to see her 
home; but the words did not come instantly, and as she 
paused, her mother rushed on to something else—clothes, 
and what Lita wanted to see if they went to the theater 
the next day. The moment for telling slipped away from 
her in the most unexpected way; it was getting farther 
and farther; in fact it was nothing but a speck on the 
horizon. 

They had an amusing dinner together. One of the 
pleasantest features in her parents’ divorce was that Mrs. 
Hazlitt felt not the least restraint about discussing the 
Hazlitt family. 

“My dear,” she would say, with her eyes dancing, 
“don’t tell me you never heard about why your Uncle 
Elbert was driven out of Portland.” 

Lita enjoyed these anecdotes extremely. Sometimes 
they contained illuminating phrases: “Of course, your 
father and I preferred to be alone.” “Naturally I knew 
just how Jim—your father—felt about it, but—” 

When her mother was like this Lita was content that 
her father and the whole world should remain outsiders. 
Her mother was a sufficient companion. 

When they were back in the library after dinner her 
father telephoned to her. It was about Italy. She took 
up the receiver with a sinking heart. Now she wished she 
had written to him. Her mother was holding the paper 
as if she were reading it, but Lita knew that she couldn’t 
help hearing the faltering sentences she was murmuring 
into the mouthpiece: 

“Yes, Pat, I spoke to her, and I’m afraid we can’t. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


53 


I mean that, under the circumstances—” She heard the 
paper rustling to the floor, and her mother standing beside 
her whispered to her: “Don’t be so timid; don’t say 
you’re afraid.” 

Then both parents were talking to her at once, one 
over the wire and one in her ear. Now, it is possible to 
listen while you talk yourself, but it is not possible to 
listen to two people at once. 

Her father was saying: “Of course, if you don’t want 
to go say so, but if you do, and will put the matter as I 
suggested—” 

And her mother was whispering sibilantly, “You’re giv¬ 
ing the idea you wish to go—so unjust to me. Say 
straight out you won’t leave me.” 

It was one of those minutes that epitomized her life, 
and her nerves were distinctly on edge as she hung up the 
receiver, to find that her mother was only waiting for this, 
to go over the whole matter more at length. 

“There are times, my dear,” she was saying, “when it 
is really necessary to speak out, even at the risk of hurt¬ 
ing a person’s feelings. I do hope you are not one of 
those weak natures who can never tell a disagreeable 
truth. It will save your father future suffering if you 
can make him understand once and for all he cannot 
come in between us—not because I forbid it, but because 
you won’t have it.” 

The evening never regained its gayety. 

The next morning—Saturday—was devoted entirely to 
clothes, and Lita now discovered a curious fact. She 
found she knew exactly how Dacer liked her to dress. 
In their few interviews they had never mentioned clothes, 


54 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


and yet she did not buy a hat or reject a model without a 
sure conviction that she was following his taste. Hereto¬ 
fore her main interest in the subject had been a desire to 
knock her schoolmates in the eye. 

She thought of an epigram; “Women dress for all 
women—and one man.” 

The morning saw a triumph of her diplomacy too. 
She and her mother were going to the theater together 
that afternoon. Coming down in the train, she had 
learned that Dacer was taking Effie and some of her 
friends to the matinee to see Eugene Valentine’s new 
play, The Winged Victory. It had not been easy to 
steer Mrs. Hazlitt toward this popular success; she was 
displeased with anything that fell short of the Comedie 
Frangaise. Lita was obliged to stoop to tactics suggested 
by Aurelia. She intimated very gently that when her 
father took her to the play he never cared what it was so 
long as she was amused, and so she wouldn’t bore her 
mother with the Valentine play: she’d wait until she 
and Pat were going on a spree—that very evening, 
perhaps— 

Mrs. Hazlitt came to terms at once and sent for the 
tickets. 

They came in a little late. The play had already be¬ 
gun, but Lita’s first glance was not at the stage. Yes, 
he was there—three nice little girls in a row in the front 
of the box, and he in the back—but not alone. A woman 
was whispering in his ear. Who was she? His fiancee? 
His wife? Had he said anything which actually pre¬ 
cluded the idea of his being married? “I expect to quar¬ 
rel a great deal with my wife.” That did not say more 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


55 


than that he had not quarreled with her so far. These 
two were certainly not quarreling. She sat in great 
agony; not of spirit only, for gradually a distinct physi¬ 
cal ache developed in her left side. She tried to glue her 
eyes to the stage, and did not hear a word, except an 
occasional murmur from her mother: “What a silly 
play!” 

The lights went up at the end of the act. Lita saw that 
the woman was rather fat and not at all young—thirty 
at least—and yet she knew that these sophisticated older 
women— There was something sleek and sumptuous 
about this one, all in black velvet and diamonds and fur. 
A slight respite came to her when Dacer went out to 
smoke a cigarette. Did this indicate indifference or 
merely intimacy? The white-skinned woman moved to 
the front of the box and began making herself agreeable 
to the children, particularly to the girl Lita had picked 
out as Effie—a regular sister-in-law-to-be manner. She 
had looked forward to the theater as a good time to 
tell her mother all about it, with a casual “Oh, do 
you see that man over there—” She was suffering 
too much to permit it. She became aware that her 
mother felt something tense and portentous in the 
air; and she said suddenly, with a sound instinct 
for red herrings, that she thought Valentine the hand¬ 
somest creature that she had ever seen. Her mother’s 
reaction to this took up most of the entr’acte. 

Doctor Dacer never saw them at all. Mrs. Hazlitt was 
an adept at getting out of a theater and finding her car 
before anyone else. She and Lita were on their way 
uptown before the little girls in the box had sorted out 


56 ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 

their coats and hats. A good many people, mostly men, 
came in to tea; and when they had gone it was time for 
Lita to dress to go and dine with her father. Dine! She 
felt she would never be able to eat again—a very curious 
feeling. 

When Mrs. Hazlitt went to her room Margaret was as 
usual waiting to help her dress, but it was not usual for 
Margaret to wear such a long face. She had entered the 
family as Lita’s nurse, but was now Mrs. Hazlitt’s maid 
and the pivot on which all domestic machinery revolved. 

As she unhooked Mrs. Hazlitt’s dress her solemn voice 
came from the middle of Mrs. Hazlitt’s back: “I think 
you ought to know, mum, that when I was brushing that 
heavy coat of Miss Lita’s this afternoon I found some¬ 
thing in the pocket.” 

“Goodness, Margaret! What?” 

Margaret fumbled under her apron and produced a 
folded, typewritten sheet a little grimy about the edges. 
Mrs. Hazlitt seized it and read: 

Dear Eugene Valentine ; May I not tell you what an 
inspiration your art is to me in my daily life? I think I have 
every photograph of you that was ever published, and one 
I bought at a fair with your signature. Only this is not my 
favorite. I like best the one as a miner from The Emerald 
Light. It is so strong and virile. Oh, Mr. Valentine, you 
cannot guess how happy it would make me if you would 
autograph one of these for me! I am not at present living 
in New York, but I am often there for week-ends, and could 
easily bring one of these pictures to the theater after a 
matinee, if that would be easiest for you. 

I shall not attempt to tell you what your art means to 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 57 

me, and how you make other men seem, and I fear they 
always will seem like they was pigmies beside you. 

I take the great liberty of inclosing my own picture in 
case it would interest you to see what a great admirer of 
yours looks like. 

Being merely a rough draft, it was unsigned. 

Of all the possibilities that crossed Mrs. Hazlitt’s mind 
on reading this document, the possibility that her daughter 
had not written it was not one. Several suspicious cir¬ 
cumstances at once popped into her head—Lita’s insist¬ 
ence on going to Valentine’s play; her admiration of 
him; her tentative suggestion about marriage; her alter¬ 
nate high spirits and abstraction. 

“And who was he?” Margaret went on. “That young 
fellar brought her home yesterday?” 

“A man brought her home yesterday?” 

“Yes—the two of them in a taxi.” 

“What did he look like?” 

“I couldn’t see him very good; but I heard him say 
‘Until Sunday’ as he got back into the taxi; and when I 
opened the door for Miss Lita you could see she was 
smiling all over her face, but not letting it out.” 

Ah, how well, in other days, Mrs. Hazlitt had known 
that beatific state! 

She walked to her door and called, “Lita! Lita!” 

Probably if one read the memoirs of Napoleon, the 
dispatches of Wellington and the commentaries of Csesar 
one would find a place where the author asserts that the 
best general is he who takes quickest advantage of 
chance. Lita, entering her mother’s room with her head 
bent over a fastening of her dress, was wondering what 


58 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


made some fasteners cling like leeches and others droop 
apart like limp handshakes. For the first few minutes 
she had no idea what her mother was talking about. She 
was prepared to feel guilty—she was guilty, but she had 
written no letter. 

“Writing a letter like that—a vulgar letter—and mak¬ 
ing me take you to his play—and coming home with 
him, when I was actually waiting at the gate for you. 
Perhaps you were not even on that train at all—so terribly 
deceitful—as if I were your enemy instead of your mother. 
I felt there was something queer about you at the play! 
An actor! I wish you knew something about actors in 
private life. And Valentine of all people! A man—” 

Mrs. Hazlitt paused. She knew nothing about Valen¬ 
tine’s private life; but she thought it was pretty safe to 
make that pause as if it were all too awful to discuss. 

“You father must be told of this. It will shock him 
very much.” 

That was the phrase that gave Lita her great idea. Not 
since she was four years old had she heard the words 
“your father” spoken in that tone. Perhaps after all, it 
was not necessary to die in order to reconcile your 
parents; perhaps it was enough to let them think you 
were undesirably in love. She had a moment to consider 
this notion while her mother, in a short frilled petticoat, 
with her blond hair about her shoulders, was running on 
about what Mr. Hazlitt would say to this man. 

Lita said at a venture, “Mr. Valentine doesn’t even 
know my name. He won’t have any idea what father is 
talking about.” 

“Indeed?” cried Mrs. Hazlitt. “Your father is not a 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


59 


man who talks without contriving to make himself under¬ 
stood. And as to Valentine’s not knowing your name, 
you’ll find he knows it—and the amount of your fortune, 
too, probably. Little schoolgirls have very little interest 
for older men, I can tell you, unless— And such a letter 
too. Tike they was pigmies.’ If you must be vulgar, 
at least try to be grammatical.” 

“Shall you see my father when he comes for me?” 

“Of course I shall not see him; but I shall take care 
that he knows the facts.” At the same time, Lita could 
not help noticing that Mrs. Hazlitt refused to wear the 
garment Margaret had left out for her, and put on, with 
apparent unconsciousness, a new French tea gown in 
mauve and silver. “He will tell you better than I can 
what sort of a man this Valentine is.” 

“But, mother, is father’s judgment of men to be de¬ 
pended on? You said about his lawyers that he had 
the faculty of collecting about him the most inefficient—” 

“I never said any such thing—or rather, it was entirely 
different. How can you speak like that of your father? 
But it’s my own fault, treating you as if you were a 
companion instead of a silly child.” 

This was war. Lita withdrew into herself. Parents, 
she reflected, did not really quite play the game; they 
couldn’t belittle a fellow parent one day, and the next, 
when they needed to use force, rush away into the wings 
and dress him up as an ogre. After all the things her 
mother had said about her father, how could she expect 
him to inspire fear? And yet Lita knew that she was a 
little afraid. 

Then Freebody the butler came up to say that Mr. 


60 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Hazlitt was waiting in his car for Miss Hazlitt. Free- 
body had been with the Hazlitts before their divorce, and 
when the split came had preferred to remain with Mrs. 
Hazlitt, although he had been offered inducements by the 
other side. In her bitterness of spirit she had felt it a 
triumph that Freebody had chosen her household. She 
had particularly valued his reason for staying with her. 
He had said he did not care to work for stage people. 
This was wonderful to quote. It let people know that her 
husband’s second wife had been an actress, and moreover 
a kind of actress that Freebody did not care to work for; 
and it could be told so good-temperedly, as if it were a 
joke on Freebody. She had always felt grateful to him. 

Now she sealed the incriminating note in another 
envelope and gave it to Freebody. 

“Give this to Mr. Hazlitt,” she said, “and tell him it 
was found in the pocket of Miss Lita’s coat”; and she 
added, when he had gone down again, “You can explain 
the rest yourself.” 

“No, mother,” said Lita; “if you want any explaining 
done you must do it yourself.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt was still protesting against this suggestion 
when Freebody came back and said that Mr. Hazlitt was 
in the drawing-room, and would be very much obliged to 
Mrs. Hazlitt if she could arrange to see him for just five 
minutes. There was a pause; Mrs. Hazlitt and Lita 
looked at each other; and Freebody, just as much in¬ 
terested as anyone, looked at no one. Then Mrs. Hazlitt 
said they would both go down. 

And so for the first time since she was five years old 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


61 


Lita stood in the room with both her parents—her mother 
trembling so that the silk lining of her tea gown rustled 
with a soft, continuous whispering like the wind in dead 
leaves, and her father, white and impressive, with his 
crush hat under one arm and the open letter held at arm’s 
length so that he could read it without his glasses. 
Something hurt and twisted came to rest in Lita by the 
mere fact that the three of them were together. 

Her father spoke first, and his voice was not quite 
natural, as he said, “It was kind of you to come down, 
Alita. I know it is exceedingly painful to you—” 

“I’ve done a good many painful things in my life for 
Lita.” 

“I know, I know,” he answered gently; “and this not 
the least. But this letter—I don’t exactly understand it.” 

“Have you read it?” 

“Not entirely.” 

“Well, read it—read it,” said Mrs. Hazlitt, as if he 
ought to see that he couldn’t understand anything until he 
had read it; but every time he began to read it she began 
to explain all the hideousness of Lita’s conduct; and when 
he looked up to listen to her she said, with a sort of 
weary patience, “Won’t you please read the letter? 
Then we can discuss it.” 

“At last he said quietly, “Alita, I cannot read it while 
you talk to me.” 

She did not answer. She moved her neck back like an 
offended swan, and glanced at Lita as much as to say, 
“You see the sort of man he is?” She did, however, re¬ 
main silent until he had finished, and looking had said, 


62 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“But this isn’t even good grammar—Tike they was 
pigmies.’ Don’t they teach her grammar at this 
school?” 

Alita Hazlitt was one of those people who, when blame 
is going about, assume it is intended for them and 
consider the accusation most unjust. 

“Well, really,” she said now, “it wasn’t my wish that 
she should go to boarding school. It has turned out 
exactly as I prophesied it would. Common girls have 
taught her to run after actors, and inefficient teachers 
have failed—” 

“I don’t remember your prophesying that, Alita.” 

“You mean to say I did not?” 

“I mean to say I have no recollection of it. I do re¬ 
member that you said it would make it easier for me to 
kidnap her. I shall never forget that.” 

“You cannot deny that I was opposed to school. I only 
yielded to your wishes—such a mistake.” 

“You have not many of that kind to reproach yourself 
with.” 

Lita, who had felt a profound filial emotion at seeing 
her parents together, was now distressingly conscious that 
they had never seemed less her parents than at this mo¬ 
ment. They seemed in fact rather dreadful people— 
childish, unjust, lacking in essential self-control. The 
last remnant of her childhood seemed to perish with this 
scene, and she became hard, matured and to a certain 
degree orphaned. 

“What I am trying to say,” Mr. Hazlitt went on, “is 
that we can hardly attribute this unfortunate episode 
entirely to the influence of the school. I mean that if 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 63 

there had not been some inherent silliness in the child 
herself—” 

This was too good a point for Mrs. Hazlitt to let slip. 

“It was not from me” she said, “that Lita inherited a 
tendency to run after people of the stage.” 

“We need not discuss inherited tendencies, I think.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt laughed. 

“Ah, that is so like you! We may criticize the child 
or the school or my bringing up, but the instant we 
begin to talk about your shortcomings it is discovered that 
we are going too far.” 

“Alita,” he said, “I came here in the most cooperative 
spirit—” 

“And do you make it a favor that you should be 
willing to try to save your child?” 

That was unjust of her mother, Lita thought. Her 
father was trying to be nice. It was her mother who 
kept making the interview bitter, and yet in essentials her 
mother had behaved so much better. Why did she suffer 
so much in the atmosphere of their anger? Why did she 
wish so passionately that they should treat each other at 
least fairly? She couldn’t understand. 

“You have not met me in a cooperative spirit,” her 
father was saying, “and I see no point in my staying. 
Good night.” 

“And you’re going—just like that—without doing 
anything at all?” 

“Of course, I shall write to Miss Barton—and if you 
are not able to take Lita back to school tomorrow I’ll go 
myself.” 

Lita noticed that though an instant before her mother 


64 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


had reproached him with indifference, she treated his last 
suggestion as if it were impertinent. 

“I think I shall be able to take my daughter safely to 
school,” she said. “But you must see this man; that I 
cannot do.” 

“I shall do nothing so ridiculous,” said Mr. Hazlitt. 
“Valentine! Why, a man like that gets a basketful a day 
of letters from idiotic women of all ages! He’s bored to 
death by them.” 

“I have yet to find a man who is bored by the adora¬ 
tion of idiotic women,” said Mrs. Hazlitt, and there was 
no mistake in anybody’s mind as to what she meant by 
that. 

A discussion on the relative idiocy of the sexes broke 
out with extraordinary violence. Lita’s conduct was 
utterly forgotten. She might have slipped out of the 
room without being noticed, except that her father was 
standing between her and the door. She tried to remem¬ 
ber Dacer’s saying that quarreling meant love, and found 
to her surprise that that idea was almost as shocking. 
Could it be that she did not want her parents to have any 
emotions at all? 

When her father had gone, her mother burst into tears. 

“I am so sorry,” she said, “that you should have seen 
him like that—at his very worst.” 

Lita had just been thinking how much the better of the 
two he had appeared. She felt as hard as a stone. She 
had no wish to be continually appraising her parents; they 
left her no choice. Her childish acceptance of them had 
been destroyed, and at the moment her friendly emotion 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


65 


towards them as companions and human beings had not 
yet flowered. Instead of wanting to tell her mother about 
Dacer, she wanted to tell Dacer about her mother. 

She saw that her whole scheme about Valentine had 
been ridiculous—a complete failure. She ought to clear 
that up at once, but she did not feel up to explaining it; 
an explanation with her mother involved so much. Mrs. 
Hazlitt would give those she loved anything in the world 
—except her attention. It was necessary to hold her 
attention with one hand and feed her your confidence 
with the other. Lita was too exhausted to attempt it 
that evening. She would do it the next day, of course. 

The next morning—Sunday—Mrs. Hazlitt awoke with 
a severe headache. Though she insisted on Lita’s remain¬ 
ing in sight—for fear that she would rush to the arms of 
Valentine—it was made clear that no friendly intercourse 
between parent and child was possible. Lita felt herself 
to be the direct cause of the agony of mind which had led 
to the headache. 

After luncheon, looking like carved marble, Mrs. 
Hazlitt got up and announced her intention of escorting 
Lita back to school. The girl saw that her mother was 
not well enough to make the double journey, and sug¬ 
gested that it would be better for her father to go with 
her. Mrs. Hazlitt treated this proposal with the coldest 
scorn. 

“I think we will not trouble your father further,” she 
said. 

At times like this she used a flat, remote voice; as 
dead, Lita thought, as a corpse talking on a disconnected 


66 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


telephone. In old times it had nearly broken her heart 
when her mother spoke to her in that tone. Today it 
had lost its power. 

They drove to the station in silence, every jar of the 
car sending a tremor through Mrs. Hazlitt’s eyelids. In 
the train, she put Lita’s knitting bag behind her head and 
shut her eyes. Lita, sitting in silence beside, felt so 
wooden—inside and out—that, she said to herself, not 
even the appearance of Doctor Dacer would make any 
difference to her. But when, before they were out of the 
tunnel, he did pass through the car—not stopping, just 
raising his hat—she found it did affect her. 

Her mother opened her eyes. 

“Who’s that man?” she said in an almost human tone. 

“I think he’s one of the surgeons who is taking care of 
Aurelia,” Lita answered, and instantly regretted the “I 
think.” It was positively deceitful, where she had in¬ 
tended to be merely noncommittal. But all the relations 
of her life seemed to have gone wrong. 

She had not done any of her work for the next day; 
not the original in geometry or the sonnet she should have 
learned by heart; in fact she had not opened a book. She 
couldn’t concentrate her mind now on mathematics or 
poetry, but she might do some of the collateral reading 
for Greek History. She slipped the book out of its strap 
and opened it. 

“Of Lycurgus the lawgiver, we have nothing to relate 
that is certain and uncontroverted—” Lita thought: 
that’s at least a candid way to begin a biography. The 
door opened, letting in the roar of the train and the smell 
of coal smoke, and Lita’s nerves remembered it, as if only 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


67 


once before in her life had she ever known a car door 
open, and looked up—to see the conductor. She dropped 
her eyes and went on: “For there are different accounts 
of his birth, his death—” The door again; this time a 
passenger in search of a seat. She made a vow to herself 
to read three pages without looking up—and did. “En¬ 
deavoring to part some persons who were concerned in a 
fray, he received a wound by a kitchen knife, of which he 
died, and left the kingdom—” 

She was aware that something in blue serge was station¬ 
ary beside her. She looked slowly up. Yes, there he 
was. 

She introduced him to her mother. The seat in front 
of them was now free, and Dacer, turning it over, sat 
down. Mrs. Hazlitt was not sorry to show that her cold¬ 
ness concerned her daughter only. She was very willing 
to talk agreeably to a stranger. The conversation was 
carried on between them as if Lita were too young to be 
expected to take part. She was not sorry, and went on 
glancing at a sentence here and there: “He set sail, 
therefore, and landed in Crete—” “—in which the 

priestess called him beloved of the gods, and rather a god 
than a man.” 

At this she really could not help looking at Dacer, and 
finding his eyes on her, she said, “I saw you at the theater 
yesterday.” 

He was interested. 

“I didn’t see you.” 

“Oh, yes, we were there,” said Mrs. Hazlitt languidly. 
“Such a poor play! And as for Valentine—these popular 
actors in America—” 


68 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“He was thought very handsome and dashing, in our 
box,” said Dacer. 

And then Lita was surprised to hear her own voice 
saying, “Was that lady your wife?” 

He stared at her for a second as if he had not heard, 
or could not understand what he seemed to have heard, 
and then answered quietly, “No, I don’t care for them by 
the cubic foot.” 

Never had such a perfect reply been made, Lita 
thought. It reconstructed their relation and the whole 
world, and yet it took place so gently that her mother had 
hardly noticed that they had spoken to each other. Life 
was simply immense, she said to herself; she had been 
quite wrong about it before. 

Then presently Dacer drew from Mrs. Hazlitt the ad¬ 
mission that she had a wretched headache—hadn’t slept— 
had had a disagreeable day—so foolish, but she was 
affected by scenes— 

“Everybody is, you know,” said Dacer. 

She should not have come on such an expedition. The 
idea of her driving four miles out to the school in a 
jiggling car—and right back again—was absurd. He 
spoke almost sternly. He had a time-table in his pocket; 
a train left for New York five minutes after their train 
arrived at Elbridge; Mrs. Hazlitt must take that back, go 
straight to bed; he would give her a powder. Of course 
he would see Miss Hazlitt safely to the school—yes, even 
into Miss Barton’s presence. He wrote his prescription. 
Lita saw that her mother was going to obey. 

As they got out at the station they saw the New York 
train already waiting. Dacer put Mrs. Hazlitt on it; 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


69 


and Lita, watching them, saw Mrs. Hazlitt turn at the 
steps and give him some special injunction. Well, she 
probably would not confide to him so soon the scandal of 
the letter to Valentine; and if she did, it would be easy 
to explain. Dacer’s face was untroubled as he returned 
to her. 

“She’s all in,” he said. 

A sharp self-reproach clutched at Lita’s heart, the 
capacity for emotion having unexpectedly returned to 
her. 

“Did it really do her harm to come out here?” 

“It really is better for her to go straight home,” he 
answered, as if admitting other motives had entered into 
his advice. 

They got into the school flivver, which was waiting for 
them. Rain had just stopped and the back curtains were 
down. It was dark. 

As they wheeled away from the station lights Lita heard 
him saying, “Didn’t you know I wasn’t married?” She 
did not immediately answer. Her hand was taken. 
“Didn’t you know?” he said again. 

A strange thing was happening to Lita. She formed 
the resolution of withdrawing her hand; she sent the 
impulse out from her brain, but it seemed only to reach 
her elbow; her hand, limp and willing, continued to 
remain in his. 

They spoke hardly at all. The near presence of 
Matthew, the driver, a well-known school gossip, made 
speech undesirable. Besides, it wasn’t necessary. Lita 
was perfectly content with silence as long as that large, 
solid hand enveloped hers. 


70 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


As they turned in at the school gate he said, “You’ll 
come over to see Aurelia this evening, I suppose.” 

She knew it wouldn’t be possible, and was obliged to 
say so. And he was going back to town by a morning 
train. There was a pause. 

As they got out he said, “Do you ever get up very 
early—as early as six?” 

“I could always make a beginning,” said Lita. 

And then, true to his promise, he turned the chairman 
of the self-government committee over to the keeping of 
Miss Barton herself. 

One excellent way of waking early is not to sleep at 
all. Lita hardly slept and was out of bed in time to 
watch the slow but fortunately inevitable spreading of 
the dawn. The new day was evidently going to be one 
of those days in late March when, though the earth has 
no suggestion of spring, the sky and the air are as vernal 
as May. Lita could see a light in the upper story of the 
infirmary. Dacer’s perhaps. 

It was not yet six when she stole downstairs and across 
the green. She had a good reason for being anxious 
about Aurelia—the stitches had been taken out of the 
wound the night before. That’s what she would say if 
anyone asked her. But no one was awake, except far 
away in the school kitchen. The door of the infirmary 
was locked, but as she pressed noiselessly against it a 
figure faced her on the other side of the glass—Dacer. 
He opened the door and came out. It shut behind him, 
and as the night latch was still on, they were locked out. 
So they sat down on the narrow steps of the cottage, each 
with a pillar to lean against, and for the first time looked 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 71 

long and steadily at each other, as people who have met 
by deliberate acknowledged plan. 

“Do you like the early morning?” he asked. 

“I never did before,” she answered. 

He smiled at her. 

“Do you realize,” he said, “that in this lifelong friend¬ 
ship of ours that is the first decent thing you have ever 
said to me?” 

Why, it was true! To Lita it had been so clear that 
she was more interested than he was; more eager; but it 
was true, she had given him none of those poignant, un¬ 
forgettable sentences which he had left with her, to go 
over in his absence. She smiled, too—very slowly. 

“Perhaps it won’t be the last,” she said. 

At half past seven Dacer went in, and a few minutes 
later Lita arrived at Room 11 to inquire after her friend. 
When it was time to go, she shook hands with Doctor 
Dacer in the presence of Aurelia, Aurelia’s mother, who 
had just arrived, and the trained nurse. 

It was the last possible meeting before the Easter 
holidays. 

Ill 

I MMEDIATELY after breakfast Lita had geometry, 
and then a study period. During this she received 
a message that Miss Barton wished to speak to her. 
Such a message was not necessarily alarming; as chair¬ 
man of the self-government committee she was consulted 
on many school problems. It was known that Miss Bar¬ 
ton relied more on her judgment than on that of the 


72 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


senior president. Still, with a poor classroom record for 
the past week, and that unlicensed hour and a half on 
the infirmary steps, Lita did feel a trifle nervous; not 
that she could care very much about such minor matters. 
And then there was Matthew and the flivver- 

The head mistress was sitting at her desk in her study, 
with its latticed windows and the etchings of English 
cathedrals on the walls. Her head was slightly on one 
side, which meant, according to school lore, that she was 
going to be particularly airy. She was. 

“Oh, well, come, my dear Lita,” she said. “This is 
really going rather far—a bit thick, as our little English 
friend would say.” 

“But what is it, Miss Barton?” Lita breathed, with all 
the pearly innocence of young guilt. 

“Oh, dear, dear!” said Miss Barton. “So we have 
nothing on our conscience!” 

“I have a great many things,” said Lita quietly. She 
knew just how to talk to her chief—if that would do any 
good. 

“One asks oneself whether girls are worth educating 
at all if this is the way the more intelligent ones expend 
their time and energy.” And Miss Barton handed Lita 
the crumpled but familiar letter to Valentine. “IVe had 
a sharp note from your father this morning, and I must 
say I don’t blame him—really I don’t. The grammar 
would be a sufficient humiliation to any school, even if the 
letter were addressed to your grandmother. And I may 
tell you that five different photographs of Mr. Valentine 
have been discovered hidden about your room—most in¬ 
geniously, it is true, but quite against our rules. Really, 



ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 73 

it’s a question whether the school can keep on if this 
sort of thing is general.” 

Lita listened in what appeared to be the most respect¬ 
ful silence. Her relief was intense. Also she was trying 
to remember what Miss Barton said word for word so 
as to repeat it to Aurelia, to whom, after all, it justly 
belonged. Aurelia did a wonderful imitation of the 
head mistress, and could make use of every phrase; she 
was always on the lookout for material. 

Lita was dismissed with a warning that she was to be 
kept in bounds until the holidays, and all her mail, out¬ 
going and incoming, would be watched. This was rather 
serious, as Dacer had distinctly intimated that he in¬ 
tended to write. Still, a way could probably be found— 
She would speak to Aurelia about it. 

She did not see Aurelia until the late afternoon. 
Dacer, as she expected, had gone; but he had left a 
message for her, Aurelia said—a very particular message. 

With what extraordinary rapidity does the human im¬ 
agination function! Between the time Aurelia an¬ 
nounced the fact that a message existed and the giving 
of the message, Lita had time to envisage half a dozen 
possibilities, from the announcement of his immediate 
return to an offer of marriage. 

The message was this: “He said to tell you that he 
had no idea you were so fond of the stage, or he would 
have behaved very differently. Do you understand- 
what that means?—for I don’t.” 

It meant, of course, that Miss Barton had told him 
about Valentine; had possibly even shown him the 
letter. It was just the sort of thing that she might do. 


74 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Lita could almost hear her describing the comic com¬ 
plications of a head mistress’ life: “This note, for in¬ 
stance, discovered in the pocket of one of my best girls; 
not even English; that hurts us most.” 

Why did Aurelia do such silly things—write such 
silly letters? Then, her sense of justice reasserting 
itself, she admitted it was not her friend’s fault that 
the authorship of the letter had been mistaken. She 
was conscious of a physical nausea at the idea that 
Dacer was going about in the belief that she, Lita Hazlitt, 
had written thus to another man. 

In the first few minutes she sketched an explanatory 
letter to him, and then remembered that her mail—in 
and out—was watched. That wouldn’t do. In fact, 
there was nothing to do but to wait for two interminable 
Weeks to pass and bring the Friday of the Easter 
holiday. Once in the same town with him, she could 
make him listen to her. There was nothing agreeable 
in life except the recollection of a large hand on hers, 
and even that memory was beginning to take on mor¬ 
tality. 

She had not even the attentions of her parents to con¬ 
sole her—not that forty thousand parents would have 
made up to her for the estrangement of Dacer. Her 
mother wrote conscientiously, but coldly. If she had 
seen her mother Lita would have told her everything, 
but the next Sunday was Mr. Hazlitt’s official visiting 
day. 

He came, but he came in a somewhat disciplinary 
mood. He gave Lita a long talk on how men felt when 
women forced attentions upon them. Lita did not dare 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


75 


take the risk of telling him; she had so little control 
over him that he might possibly tell the whole story to 
Miss Barton and involve Aurelia. At the same time 
she did not want him to find it out for himself by a 
futile visit to Valentine. Before he left she asked him 
point-blank if he contemplated such a step. 

“Of course not,” he answered. 

And at almost that exact moment Freebody was ush¬ 
ering Valentine into Mrs. Hazlitt’s library. For Mrs. 
Hazlitt was not a woman to let the grass grow under her 
feet, where her maternal obligations were concerned. 
The more she thought the matter over the more ob¬ 
vious it became that one or the other of Lita’s parents 
must see Valentine and let him know that, however 
silly and forthputting the child had been, she was not 
without conventional protection. Of course, this was 
her father’s duty; but since men as fathers were com¬ 
plete failures, all the disagreeable tasks of parenthood 
devolved inevitably on mothers. After Dacer had put her 
on the train the Sunday before, she had gone home and 
taken the powder he gave her and slept through a long 
night; and when she waked the next morning she had seen 
her duty clearly—to interview Valentine herself. It was 
a duty which implied a reproof to her former husband. 

She looked for Valentine’s name in the telephone book, 
but of course he was not there. Then she called up the 
theater where he was acting, and they refused to give her 
his address, but said a letter directed to the theater would 
reach him. Mrs. Hazlitt was in no mood to brook the 
mail’s delays, and telegraphed him that it was necessary 
that she should see him for a few minutes at any time or 


76 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


place convenient to him, and signed her name with a 
comfortable conviction that all New York knew just who 
Alita Hazlitt was. 

Now Valentine, like most people busy with a successful 
career, was utterly uninterested in conventional social 
life; he hardly ever opened his mail, rarely answered tele¬ 
grams; and if, by mistake, he did make a social engage¬ 
ment, he always told his secretary to call the people up 
and break it. In the ordinary course of events Mrs. 
Hazlitt’s telegram would have been opened in his dressing 
room, and would have lain about for a day or two until 
Valentine thought of saying to someone who might know, 
“Who is this woman—Alita Hazlitt?” And then it would 
have dropped on the floor, and would eventually have 
been swept up and put in the theater ash can. 

But, as it happened, Valentine had always cherished a 
wish to play the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet before 
he was too old to wear a round-necked doublet; and a 
charitable institution, of which Mrs. Hazlitt was a most 
negligent trustee, had made a suggestion that Valentine 
should help them out in a benefit they were about to give. 
So Valentine, remembering her name on the letterhead of 
the institution, jumped at the conclusion that she had been 
selected to clinch the arrangement. 

And so not more than three or four days went by before 
he answered her telegram by calling her up on the tele¬ 
phone, and it was arranged that he was to come and see 
her on Sunday at five. 

She felt nervous as the time approached. She kept say¬ 
ing to herself that she had no idea how to deal with people 
like this. So awkward for a woman alone; but she was 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


77 


alone—utterly alone. She had become rather tearful by 
the time Valentine was announced. She waited a mo¬ 
ment to compose herself and became even more unnerved 
in the process. 

When she went down she found him standing by one of 
the bookcases, reading. She saw with a distinct pang that 
he was a handsomer man off the stage than on, with his 
fine hawklike profile and irrepressibly thick, furrowed 
light hair. He slid a book back into place as she entered, 
with the soft gesture of a book lover. 

“I see you have a first edition of Trivia,” he said. 
“I envy you.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt, who had thought up a greeting which was 
now rendered utterly impossible, was obliged to make a 
quick mental bound. She had never opened her edition 
of Gay, which she had inherited from her grandfather, 
and had never suspected it of being a first. 

She said, “Oh, do you go in for first editions?” 

“Not any more,” answered Valentine. “I’ve become 
more interested in autographs and association books. 
I have a wonderful letter of Gay’s from—from—oh, you 
know, where he was staying when he wrote the Beggar’s 
Opera—that duke’s place—well, it will come to me.” 

But it never did come to him—not, at least, until he 
went home and looked it up—because, glancing at his 
hostess, he saw in those anxious, dark-fringed eyes that 
she wasn’t a bit interested in his Gay letter; and so, with 
that tact that all artists possess if they will only use it, he 
said gently, “But it wasn’t about autographs that you 
wanted to see me, was it? It’s about your benefit.” 

“The benefit?” 


78 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“No? Well, what is it then?” 

“Oh, I hoped you would understand without my being 
obliged to dot all the i\ s.” 

She said this with a great deal of meaning. Leaning 
forward on her elbow, in her mauve and silver tea gown, 
behind her silver tea tray, she looked very charming. 
Valentine thought that he had never known a woman who 
combined such perfection of appointments with such 
simplicity of manner. He had a strong instinct for the 
best in any art. It struck him that for a certain sort of 
thing this was the best. 

She went on: “Perhaps you will think I should not 
have sent for you; but what could I do? I am so alone. 
My husband and I, as you perhaps know, are divorced.” 

Valentine achieved just the right sort of murmur at this, 
indicating that he personally could not regret the fact, 
but found it of intense interest. 

Mrs. Hazlitt hurried on: “I feel I must apologize for 
my silly child—so vulgar and absurd, though I suppose 
girls must think they’re in love—not that I mean it’s 
absurd to think—I mean in your case it’s natural enough 
—your last play—so romantic, dear Mr. Valentine—only, 
would you mind telling me just how it was you brought 
my daughter home a week ago Friday?” 

Valentine emerged from this like a dog from the surf, 
successive waves had passed over him without his having 
had any idea what it meant. 

“I don’t think I have the pleasure of knowing your 
daughter,” he said. 

“Ah, not by name!” 

She was ready for him there. She rose, and taking a 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 79 

silver-framed photograph from the table she thrust it into 
his hands. 

He studied it and said politely, “What a charming 
little face! How like you, if I may say so!” 

“Don’t you recognize it? Hasn’t she sent it to you? 
Hasn’t she written you letters?” 

“Possibly,” said Valentine, and he added apologetically, 
“You know, I can’t read all my letters. The telegrams I 
do try to manage, although—” 

Mrs. Hazlitt could not pretend to be interested in how 
Valentine managed his telegrams. 

“You mean you didn’t bring Lita home last Friday—a 
week ago?” she said, and her eyes began to get large. 

Valentine leaned back and looked at the ceiling, 
stamped one foot slightly on the floor and crossed the 
other leg over it. This seemed to help him think, for 
almost immediately he said: 

“We were putting in our new villain”; and when he 
saw that Mrs. Hazlitt did not grasp the information, he 
added, “We were rehearsing all that afternoon.” 

Of course, she told him the whole story, and heard in 
return many interesting and surprising incidents of a 
popular actor’s life. He was extremely interesting and 
sympathetic; so different from what she had expected— 
delightful. She felt she had made a real friend. In fact, 
she had promised to have tea with him at his apartment 
the following Thursday. She was so glad he had not said 
Friday. Lita would be back for her holidays on Friday, 
and somehow it would be hard to explain after all she had 
said against actors; though, of course, Lita herself would 
be called on to explain how she had allowed—and who was 


80 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


the man who had brought her home? Thursday would be 
safe, though; and she did want to meet this new Spanish 
actress Doria for whom the party was given. Valentine 
had assumed that Mrs. Hazlitt spoke Spanish, and when 
she insisted that she did not he was perfectly tactful. 
His own, he said, was getting rusty; but Doria was all 
right in French. He said he would come for her himself 
on Thursday. She thought that very kind. 

She had a flurried, excited feeling when he had gone 
that she was entering upon a new phase of life. She had 
had a delightful afternoon. But the mystery of Lita’s 
conduct was deeper than ever. Who was the man? Had 
there been a man at all? She sat down to write to her 
child, demanding to know the truth; but was interrupted 
by the entrance of Freebody with a long, narrow box 
which looked as if it might contain a boa constrictor, but 
did actually contain a dozen long-stemmed roses, with 
Valentine’s card. 

Mrs. Hazlitt tore up her letter. After all, it would be 
better to wait until Friday, and when Lita returned they 
could have a long, clear explanation. 

But, as things turned out, Lita came back on Thursday. 
A little girl in one of the younger classes contrived to 
catch a light case of measles, and the school was hurried 
home a day ahead of time. It was generally mentioned 
that the child deserved a tablet in the common room; and 
she did actually receive a laurel wreath tied with red, 
white and blue ribbon, and bearing the inscription, “Dulce 
et decora est to get measles for the good of your 
schoolmates.” 

The New York girls came back unheralded, for the 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


81 


school did not have time to telephone every parent. Miss 
Jones went about in a bus dropping the girls at their 
places of residence. 

Lita, for the first time in her life, hoped that her mother 
would not be in. She wanted to be free to telephone 
Doctor Dacer without comment. She knew her mother 
would disapprove of her telephoning. She had had other 
glimpses of the last generation’s method of dealing with 
romantic complications. They had strange old con¬ 
ventions about letting the advances come from the mascu¬ 
line side, or at least of maneuvering so that they appeared 
to. Subtle, they called it. Lita thought it rather sneaky. 

She learned from Freebody at the door that her mother 
was dressing and was to be out to tea, but was to be 
home to dinner. Lita walked straight to the library, and 
having looked up Dacer’s number called the office. The 
office nurse answered. Yes, the doctor was in. Who 
wished to speak to him? Miss Hazlitt? Just a minute. 
There was a long silence. What would she do if he re¬ 
fused to speak to her? Go there? 

“Oh, Doctor Dacer, I wanted to tell you that Miss 
Barton told you something that wasn’t true, though she 
thought it was. You know what I mean. ... I want to 
see you, please. I wish you would. . . . Now; the 
sooner the better. . . . Yes; good-by.” 

She hung up the receiver with a hand not absolutely 
steady. He was coming at once. She took off her hat 
and dropped it on the sofa and stood still in the middle 
of the floor. If only her mother would keep on dressing 
for half an hour or so! It couldn’t take him very long 
to get from his office in Sixty-third Street near Park— 


82 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


Now he was putting on his hat, now he was in the street, 
now he was coming nearer and nearer every minute— 

Exactly eleven minutes by the watched clock after she 
had hung up the telephone receiver the doorbell rang. 
The doorbell could just be heard in the library by 
straining ears. 

And then Freebody said from the doorway, “Doctor 
Dacer to see you, miss.” 

Dacer was standing now in the doorway, looking at her 
darkly. Severity was evidently going to temper his 
justice. 

“Well?” he said. 

The main thing was that he had come. 

“Didn’t you think I could write a better love letter 
than that?” she began. 

“Unfortunately I have had no opportunities of judging.” 

“What does a head mistress know about girls?” 

“She tells a pretty well-documented story.” 

It came over Lita that they were quarreling—almost— 
and that she liked the process, but liked it only because 
she knew it must come out right. Her case was so clear. 

“The letter and the photographs belonged to Aurelia,” 
she said. “I hid them for her when she was taken ill. 
That was why I was in such a hurry to go that first day— 
when you patted me on the head. And if they told you 
about a mysterious man who brought me home in a taxi— 
that was you, and—” 

“You never wrote to Valentine?” 

“Never!” 

He took a step toward her. 

“Never sent him your photograph?” 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


83 


“No!” 

He took another step. 

“Never saw him except on the stage?” 

“No!” 

Another step would bring him to her; and what, she 
wondered, would happen then? 

What happened was that the door opened and Freebody 
said, “Mr. Valentine.” 

And there he was, the man himself, more beautiful than 
the posters. 

Never before had the chairman of the self-government 
committee found herself deserted by the powers of speech 
and action. She stood helplessly staring at the great 
artist before her. And even then the day might have 
been saved if Valentine had not been so kind, so de¬ 
termined to put everything straight. 

“Ah,” he said, supposing he had to do with an em¬ 
barrassed child, “you are Miss Hazlitt, and very like 
your picture. I should know you anywhere.” 

“You’ve seen my picture?” said Lita, with a sort of 
feeble hope that the question would convey her complete 
innocence to Dacer. She could hear her own voice twit¬ 
tering high and silly like a hysterical bird. 

“Yes, indeed,” said Valentine; and the voice, which was 
only kind, sounded in Dacer’s ears significant. “This 
one, isn’t it? Photography”—he turned politely, includ¬ 
ing Dacer in the conversation—“is only just getting 
back to where it was in the days of the daguerreotype. 
How wonderful they were! So soft—” 

“Photography has always had its uses, I believe,” an¬ 
swered Dacer in his deepest voice. He made a slight 


84 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


bow in the general direction of Lita. “Good-by, Miss 
Hazlitt,” he said, and each word came with a terrible 
distinctness. “If you and I don’t meet for some time, 
you’ll remember me to Aurelia, I hope. She seemed to 
me a singularly candid, truthful nature. I admire that.” 

He bowed also to Valentine, and was gone. Something 
about his manner struck Valentine as peculiar. He 
feared that he had interrupted one of those conversations 
that do not bear interruption—an impression somewhat 
confirmed when Miss Hazlitt snatched her hat from the 
sofa and ran out of the room without a word. 

Left alone, Valentine returned to Trivia; but he began 
to be nervous about the time. He did not want Doria to 
arrive at his apartment before he and Mrs. Hazlitt got 
there; so that when Alita came down, apologizing for 
being late, but in the tone of the habitually late, as if no 
one really expected you to be on time, he hurried her 
grimly downstairs. 

Freebody was waiting in the hall to open the door, and 
told her of her daughter’s return. She showed a disposi¬ 
tion to stay and argue the matter with him. How could 
it be, when she was not to come till the next day? But 
Freebody wouldn’t argue, and Valentine was firm—they 
must go. 

“Tell Miss Lita I’ll be back before seven,” said Mrs. 
Hazlitt, and let herself be hurried out to the car. 

Freebody stared at her. Did not she know that Miss 
Hazlitt had just torn out of the house like a little mad 
witch? 

Lita had moved fast, but an angry man faster. As 
she left the house she could see him swinging on the step 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


85 


of a moving Madison Avenue car. As it was a south¬ 
bound car, she hoped this meant that he was going back 
to his office. 

She had seen the address only once, when she looked 
up his number in the telephone book; but it was indelibly 
impressed on her mind, although the date of the Battle of 
Bosworth Field, which she had spent so much time mem¬ 
orizing, always escaped her. In her hurry she had for¬ 
gotten not only her gloves but her purse, so that she was 
obliged to walk the eight or nine blocks. Walk? She 
almost ran, crossing all necessary streets diagonally, 
dodging in and out between motors. Suppose he should 
go out again before she got there! It was terrible! 

Doctor Burroughs’ office was in an oyster-colored apart¬ 
ment house. In a window on the ground floor she read 
the blue porcelain name of Doctor Burroughs—very 
large; and Doctor Dacer—very small. She entered a 
hall that was low and decorated in the style of a 
Florentine palace. Miss Waverley, with her white hair 
brushed straighter than ever, answered the door. 

“Have you an appointment with the doctor?” 

She spoke very politely, but there was a hint that with¬ 
out an appointment— 

“I think he’ll see me for a minute,” said Lita. 

She was far from feeling certain of this; and if he re¬ 
fused, she did not know exactly what she could do ex¬ 
cept sit on the doorstep. 

She was shown into the waiting room. A complete 
silence fell upon the room—the house—the city. Then 
a returning rustling of starched skirts in the narrow pas¬ 
sageway was heard. The doctor would see her. She 


86 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


was led down the long corridor to a small room filled for 
the most part by a desk. A door was standing open into 
a larger room beyond, which was lined with white tiles and 
decorated with glass cases along in the walls in which 
hideous instruments were displayed as if they were objects 
of art. The nurse having ushered Lita into the first 
room, retired to the second, where she remained without 
shutting the door between, and could be heard moving 
about and doing something with instruments that made 
a soft, continual clinking. 

Dacer rose slowly from his desk, on which cards in 
several colors were strewn. 

He said in his deep voice, “Yes, I thought it might be 
you.” 

“Doctor Dacer—” Lita began. Her throat was dry. 

“Oh, don’t explain,” he said. “What’s the use?” 

For the first time she saw that she had no explanation 
whatsoever to offer. She could only say, “I haven’t any 
idea why that man suddenly appeared at the house.” It 
sounded feeble, even to her. 

“Perhaps to inquire about Aurelia,” answered Dacer, 
and permitted himself a most disagreeable smile. 

“That’s not funny,” said Lita. 

“It’s not original. I got the main idea from someone 
else.” 

“Doctor Dacer, I never saw Mr. Valentine—nor wrote 
to him. The only explanation I can think of is—” 

Miss Waverley entered. 

“Mr. Andrews on the telephone, doctor.” 

Dacer snatched up the telephone as if it were a cap- 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 87 

tured standard, saying as he did so, “Perhaps while I’m 
telephoning you’ll be able to think of the explanation.” 

But she wasn’t able to think at all. She could just 
stare at him. 

“Yes,” she heard him saying, “there is a—someone is 
here at the moment, but I shall be free directly.” He 
hung up the receiver and replaced the telephone on the 
desk. “Well,” he said, “have you got something good 
ready for me?” 

She had one small idea. 

“Can’t you see that if things were as you think I 
would hardly have left Mr. Valentine to follow you, at 
once?” 

“Oh, quite a time has gone by!” 

“Because I had to walk—I had no money with me. 
Walk? No, Iran!” 

He was affected by the picture of her running after 
him through the streets, and she pressed on: “Doctor 
Dacer, I want to tell you why I let my parents and Miss 
Barton and everyone think that letter to Valentine was 
from me.” 

He sat down, shrugging his shoulders as if it were 
useless but he would not forbid it. 

Truth in detail is almost inimitable. Lita told her 
story in great detail—Aurelia’s request—the hidden 
photographs—the story of the tramp—the letter thrust 
into her pocket and discovered by Margaret—the identi¬ 
cal expressions of her parents on the subject of her mar¬ 
riage and her own sudden inspiration that here, at least, 
was one topic on which they agreed. 


88 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“You see,” she said eagerly, “it was only a few hours 
before that my father had said just the same thing— 
that I must not think of marrying for years; and then 
my mother—” 

“You had sounded both your parents on the subject 
of marriage?” 

Lita looked at him. His face was like a mask. 

“I had happened to mention in the course of conver¬ 
sation—” 

“You are thinking of getting married, Miss Hazlitt?” 

“No, Doctor Dacer.” 

“No? The idea has never crossed your mind?” 

“No—least not in connection with—no.” 

Someone had told her that blushing could be prevented 
by a sharp pinch in the back of the neck. It was a lie. 
She felt as if she were being painted in a stinging crimson 
paint, while Dacer continued to regard her with a cold, 
impassive stare. He rose and shut the door between the 
two offices. 

“Am I to understand,” he said, “that you have never 
considered the possibility of marriage?” 

She shook her head. She felt as if she were drowning. 

“Then consider it now,” he said, and took her up in 
his arms, her toes dangling inches from the floor. 

Miss Waverley entered again. The apartment was 
well built and the doors opened without any preliminary 
creaking. 

“Doctor Burroughs on the telephone, doctor,” she said. 

There was nothing to do but to let Lita slide to her feet 
and to take up the telephone from the desk. It was all 
very well for him, with his attention immediately occu- 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


89 


pied; but Lita was left alone to encounter the blank self- 
control of Miss Waverley’s expression as she again shut 
the door behind her. Dacer was giving his chief an 
account of a professional visit, and was about to receive 
instructions. Lita heard him say, “Yes, Ill hold the 
wire.” 

In the pause that followed, Lita whispered, pointing 
toward the door, “She saw!” 

“Unless stricken with blindness.” 

“She took it so calmly.” 

“Nothing in her life.” 

“I mean as if it happened every day.” 

Dacer shouted, still holding the telephone to his ear, 
“Miss Waverley!” Miss Waverley returned, and Dacer 
went on, “Have you ever found a lady in my arms 
before?” 

“No, not in yours, doctor,” said the nurse, as if she 
would not wish to be pressed about some of the people 
she had worked for. 

“Thanks,” said Dacer. “Miss Hazlitt thought you 
were not quite enough surprised.” 

“I wasn’t surprised at all,” answered Miss Waverley, 
and as Dacer was obliged to turn back to the telephone 
and take down some directions in writing she added, “He’s 
been so absent-minded lately—since Elbridge—forgetting 
everything if I didn’t follow him up.” 

Dacer had finished telephoning. 

“Miss Hazlitt and I are going to be married,” he said. 
“Get me a taxi, will you?” 

“Not now!” said Lita. 

He laughed. 


90 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“No, not tonight,’’ he answered. “I’ve got to see a 
patient in Washington Square. You’ll go with me and 
wait in the cab. Then we’ll dine somewhere—and not get 
you back until late. We’ll test this theory of yours that 
parents can be reconciled through anxiety.” 

“Oh, I couldn’t!” said Lita. “It would drive my 
mother mad!” 

“Or to your father.” 

“It would hurt her terribly.” 

“I’m a surgeon. I know you’ve got to hurt people 
sometimes for their own good. My bag, please, Miss 
Waverley. My book—thanks. Good-by.” 

A moment later they had gone, and Miss Waverley 
was left alone, tidying the office for the night. She shook 
her head. Her thought was: “And they expect us to 
respect them as if they were grown men.” She sighed. 
“And the grown-up men aren’t any better,” she thought. 

In the meantime the pleasure of Mrs. Hazlitt’s after¬ 
noon had been spoiled by the idea that Lita was sitting 
at home, waiting for her. Hers was a nature most open 
to self-reproach if no one reproached her. 

She returned about seven, eager to do her duty. She 
came running upstairs, calling to her daughter as she ran, 
and felt distinctly foolish when Freebody said coldly that 
Miss Hazlitt had not yet come in. 

“Hasn’t come in?” cried Mrs. Hazlitt, and looked very 
severely at him over the banisters. 

Freebody had been with her long enough to have 
learned to withstand the implication that anything he 
told her was his fault. He moved about, putting the card 
tray straight. 


91 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 

“Miss Hazlitt went out before you did, madam.” 

“Alone?” 

“After the other gentleman left. Not Mr. Valentine.” 

“There was no other gentleman but Mr. Valentine.” 

Freebody, in his irritating way, would not argue with 
her. She had to begin all over again in order to elicit 
the facts—a gentleman had come to the house soon after 
Miss Hazlitt’s arrival, and just before the arrival of Mr. 
Valentine. When he left, Miss Hazlitt had gone directly 
—Freebody would infer that she had been trying to catch 
up with him. 

“Did she?” asked Mrs. Hazlitt. 

“Ah, I couldn’t say, madam.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt was really alarmed. This was the other 
man—the real danger. By half past eight she was con¬ 
vinced of disaster. She called up her former husband 
at his club. He had gone out to dinner. How 
characteristic! 

No one in the club seemed to know where he was 
dining; but the telephone operator was ill-advised enough 
to say that if they did know they were not allowed to give 
out the information. 

Nothing annoyed Mrs. Hazlitt so much as a rule. The 
idea that the telephone operator of the club knew some¬ 
thing which she wanted to know and would not tell her 
was an idea utterly intolerable. Was her child to be 
murdered—or worse—because the club had a silly rule? 
She ordered her motor and drove down to interview the 
starter. He fortunately had heard the address Mr. 
Hazlitt had given his chauffeur. It was that of a small 
restaurant famous for quiet and for good food. 


92 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


A few minutes later Mrs. Hazlitt was standing in the 
doorway, fixing her former husband with a significant 
stare. He was half through dinner with a man from 
Baltimore. Baltimoreans believe that good food is only 
terrapin and canvasback; and that terrapin and canvas- 
backs can only be properly cooked in Baltimore, hence 
that no good food is obtainable outside of their native 
city. Hazlitt was in process of proving his friend wrong 
when he looked up and saw his former wife. He guessed 
at once that something had happened to Lita, and began 
to feel guilty. 

Alita, in common with so many wives, had always pos¬ 
sessed the power of making her husband feel guilty. In 
old times, with just a glance or an inflection of the voice 
she could make him feel like the lowest of criminals. 
And, rage as he might, he found this power had persisted. 
Love may not always endure until death do them part, 
but the ability of married people to make each other feel 
guilty endures to the grave—and possibly beyond. 

Hazlitt sprang to his feet, thinking that he ought to 
have seen Valentine. It had been mere obstinacy on his 
part. If anything had happened to Lita as a result— 

Presently they were driving back to the house in Mrs. 
Hazlitt’s car, and so strong is the power of association 
that as they got out at the house Hazlitt found himsrelf 
feeling for his latchkey, though it was thirteen years since 
he had had a key to that lock. Mrs. Hazlitt saw it and 
felt rather inclined to cry. She herself was not without 
a sense of guilt, for she had not told him about her inter¬ 
view with Valentine. When he said repentantly that he 
ought to have seen the fellow she answered that she was 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 93 

convinced his first judgment had been correct—it wasn’t 
necessary. He thought this very generous of her. 

It was after nine when they entered the house. Still 
nothing had been heard of Lita. Activity for some com¬ 
mon interest can make strangers friends and may keep 
enemies from open quarrels. Mrs. Hazlitt admired 
Hazlitt’s methods—his instructions to his secretary—his 
possession of a friend in the police department. He com¬ 
plimented her upon the placing of her telephones, her pens 
and ink. He thought to himself as he looked about the 
room that she had always had the power to make the 
material side of life comfortable and agreeable; if only 
she had understood mental peace as well— 

Their intercourse was impersonal, but not hostile. 
Hazlitt bore interruption calmly, and though she could 
not allow him to say that Lita resembled him in tempera¬ 
ment, she contradicted him without insult. They came 
nearest to a disagreement over the question as to whether 
it was or was not a good rule that club employes should 
not be allowed to give information as to the whereabouts 
of the members. 

“Are all the members’ lives so full of secrets?” she 
asked, and she made the word “secrets” sound very sly. 

Fortunately at that moment the doorbell rang, and 
Lita and Dacer entered. 

“Where have you been?” asked her father angrily. 

“Dining with Doctor Dacer,” answered Lita. “He 
and I are engaged.” 

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Hazlitt. 

“My daughter is not old enough to know her own 
mind,” said Hazlitt to Dacer. 


94 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


“I know it all right,” said Lita. 

“Of course,” said Dacer temperately, “we understand 
that we could not be married for some time, but we 
wanted you to know—” 

“Oh, that’s what young people always say to begin 
with,” Mrs. Hazlitt answered; “but the first thing you 
know they are sending out their wedding invitations.” 

Lita and Dacer looked a trifle silly. This had been 
exactly their idea—to get consent to a long, long en¬ 
gagement, and then by the summer to start a campaign 
for an early marriage. 

Mr. Hazlitt rose and stood on the hearth rug—as if it 
were his own. 

“You two young people realize,” he remarked, “that 
I have never seen or heard of Doctor Dacer before, and 
that so far he has caused me nothing but anxiety.” 

“The whole thing has just been a web of deceit,” said 
Mrs. Hazlitt. 

“Until I know a little more about him, and until Lita 
is a year or so older and more mature, I should not be 
willing even to discuss an engagement, and I’m sure my 
wife agrees with me.” 

All four noticed that he had used the word without 
qualification, and all four successfully ignored the fact. 
Indeed anyone entering the room at that moment and 
seeing Mr. Hazlitt, so commanding on the hearth rug, 
and Mrs. Hazlitt in a chair beside the fire, looking up at 
him and nodding her head at the end of every sentence, 
would have supposed them a married couple entering 
upon middle age without a thought of disagreement. 

The discussion followed good orthodox lines. The 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


95 


older people, Olympian above their distress, granted that 
in a year or so if all went well an engagement might be 
discussed; but at present none existed. The young 
people, really calm, knew that nothing but their own wills 
could change the fact that they were engaged at that 
moment. 

When Dacer had gone home and Lita had gone to bed 
her parents outlined their campaign. Delay without defi¬ 
nite commitment was the idea—it always is. In the 
meantime Hazlitt would have the young man thoroughly 
looked up. Mrs. Hazlitt wagged her head despondently. 

“Pm afraid there’s nothing really against him. Doctor 
Burroughs wouldn’t have an assistant with anything 
actually criminal in his record.” 

Lita was to be allowed to see him occasionally. To 
write? No, they decided, after talking it over, that letters 
would be a mistake. The point was, Mrs. Hazlitt ex¬ 
plained, that the child must be left perfectly free to 
change her mind. This might be just a fancy for the 
first man who had asked her to marry him. Mrs. Hazlitt 
supposed it was the first. Next winter Lita might meet 
a dozen men she preferred. She had a sudden idea: 
Perhaps it would be wiser if the girl did go to Italy with 
her father, to get her out of the way for a few months. 

“I’m afraid you’d miss her dreadfully.” 

“I should cry all summer, but it doesn’t matter.” 

“There’s nothing that I can see to prevent your going 
to Italy yourself.” 

“It’s not usual to go junketing about Europe with your 
divorced husband,” she answered. 

“It need not be known that we went together; we 


96 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


might meet by accident,” said Mr. Hazlitt, at which his 
former wife laughed a little and said it sounded to her 
like a very improper suggestion, and he looked serious and 
blank and monumental. 

The Italian trip was left in abeyance, but the other 
details were settled in a clear and definite manner. Dacer 
was to come to the house once a month, never to write; 
and there were to be no flowers or presents, or mention 
of an engagement. Certainly not! They parted gravely, 
like people who had had their last long talk. 

But this campaign, like many others, worked better in 
theory than in effect. Dacer came the next morning, and 
again in the afternoon, and then again the next morning. 
Mrs. Hazlitt protested. She said three times in twenty- 
four hours was not occasionally. Dacer only laughed and 
said it seemed very occasional to him. The situation was 
made more difficult for her, too, by the fact that she 
really liked Dacer, and he and Lita were so friendly and 
seemed to value her company so much that she enjoyed 
herself with them more than was consistent in a stern, 
relentless parent. Besides, in old days she had told Lita 
a great many clever things she had accomplished in the 
management of her own parents when she had been first 
engaged; and Lita, horrible child, remembered every 
word, and would repeat them all to Dacer in her mother’s 
presence. 

Finding herself helpless, the second morning she tele¬ 
phoned to Hazlitt. She said she thought it was almost 
impossible to forbid a man the house partially; it ought to 
be one thing or the other. 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 97 

Hazlitt said, “Let it be the other then; don’t let the 
fellow come at all.” 

Hearing a note of pitiable weakness in her voice, he 
offered to come in himself. 

He came that afternoon about three—an excellent time, 
for Lita was upstairs and Dacer was occupied with office 
hours. Mrs. Hazlitt sent Freebody to ask her daughter 
to come down, while she apologized to her former husband 
for troubling him again. 

“But the fact is,” she said, “turning a young man out 
of the house—that really is a father’s job.” 

“Even if it isn’t the father’s house?” 

“It’s no affair of Doctor Dacer’s whose house it is,” 
answered Mrs. Hazlitt with dignity. “You see, a 
mother’s relation with a daughter is too intimate, too 
tender—” 

“I hope a father’s may be both.” 

“I suppose it might, but it’s not like a mother’s. She 
respects you deeply, Jim. I’ve brought her up to that,” 

“Have you, Alita?” 

A hint of skepticism in his voice wounded Mr. Hazlitt. 

“Of course I have,” she answered. “Why, what do 
you mean? Are you trying to suggest—how unjust! 
Lita,” she added, as her daughter entered, “have I ever 
said a word that could in any way reflect on your father? 
Haven’t I always brought you up to respect him?” 

Lita looked at them reflectively. She had, in her time, 
told a great many untruths for their sake. Now that she 
had them here together, she rather thought it would be 
a good idea to tell them the truth. As she paused, her 


98 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


mother repeated her question even more emphatically: 
“Have I ever said anything to prejudice you against 
your father ?” 

“Why, of course you have, mother/’ she said, Her 
father gave a short, bitter laugh, and she turned on him. 
“And so have you, Pat—only not so often as mother.” 

“How can you be so disloyal?” cried her mother, her 
eyes getting larger than ever. 

“How can I be anything else? You two make me 
disloyal.” 

“Remember you are speaking to your mother,” said 
Hazlitt protectingly. 

“And to you, too, Pat,” answered his daughter calmly. 
“You’ve each wanted me to hate the other one, and you’ve 
both been as open about it as you dared to be. It was 
always like giving mother a Christmas present if I said 
anything disagreeable about you. And your cold gray 
eye would light up, Pat, if I criticized anything about 
her.” 

“Divorced or not, we are your parents, please re¬ 
member,” said Hazlitt. 

“You don’t always remember it yourselves,” the girl 
answered. “Parents! You seem sometimes as if you 
were just two enemies trying to injure each other through 
me.” 

Mrs. Hazlitt was already standing, and she drew a 
step nearer her former husband. 

“Jim,” she wailed, “aren’t they terrible—these young 
people? And I thought she loved me!” 

“I do love you, mother,” said Lita; “I love you 
dearly—better than I love Pat, only I can’t help seeing 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


99 


that he behaves better. Or perhaps not. Women under¬ 
stand the art of undermining better than men do. I 
think Pat did all he knew how. You both filled my 
mind with poison against the other, drop by drop. Oh, 
you don’t know how dreadful it is to be poisoned all the 
time by the two people you love best in the world!” 

Mrs. Hazlitt looked up into the face of her former 
husband, as to an oracle. 

“Do you think it’s our divorce she’s talking about?” 

“Of course it isn’t, mother,” Lita answered. “I see 
you had a perfect right not to be husband and wife any 
more if you didn’t want to be; but you couldn’t change 
the fact that you are still my parents. You ought to be 
able to cooperate about me, to present a united front.” 

“You’ll find we present a united front on this issue,” 
said Hazlitt sternly. “I mean your engagement.” 

“Indeed?” said his daughter. “Let me tell you, I 
could separate you tomorrow on it. I’m an expert. I 
should only have to intimate to Pat that mother was 
getting to like Luke so much that behind his back—but 
I’m sick of being treacherous and untruthful. You two 
must face the fact that I love you both; that I like to be 
with both of you; and that I will not be made to feel 
lower than the wombat because I do love you both. 
Now, there it is; settle it between you.” 

After she had gone they continued to stare at each 
other, like the last sane people in a world gone mad. 

“What,” said her father, “do you gather that that in¬ 
comprehensible tirade was all about?” 

“I can’t make out,” answered her mother. “She 
never was like that before—so excitable and rude. And 


100 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


I need not tell you that it’s all her fancy. I’ve been 
ridiculously scrupulous in never saying anything to her 
but what a girl ought to hear about her father—a fixed 
principle that our difficulties should not come between 
you and her.” 

“Of course, I know,” he answered. “I know, because 
I know how absolutely without foundation her attack 
on me was. I’ve been most punctilious. To hurt a 
child’s ideal of her mother! No, I have a good deal to 
reproach myself with in regard to my treatment of you, 
Alita; but not that—not that.” 

“I’m sure of it,” and she gave him quite a starry 
glance. “The truth is, I’ve spoiled her, Jim. I’ve 
treated her too much as a friend—as an equal.” 

“It can’t be done,” said Hazlitt, shaking his head. 

“It isn’t possible to have an equal relation with the 
younger generation. You’ve got to go to your contem¬ 
poraries for friendship, Alita. That was true since the 
world began; but these young people—” 

Mrs. Hazlitt, who was still treating him as if he were 
an oracle, brightened at these words as if he were an 
oracle in excellent form. 

“Yes,” she said, “they are different, aren’t they? I 
can’t imagine my ever having spoken to my parents as 
Lita just spoke to us.” 

“Your mother! I should say not. One of the great¬ 
est ladies I ever met anywhere! ” 

“Wasn’t mother wonderful?” murmured Mrs. Hazlitt, 
and there was a pause while they both reflected upon 
common memories. 

Then she went on: “I must say I think you are very 


ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 


101 


generous not to criticize me for the way I’ve brought 
Lita up. I feel humiliated.” 

“My dear Alita,” said Hazlitt, “I never have criticized 
you, and I never shall.” 

“She hurt me terribly, Jim. She seemed so hard, so 
ruthless, so appraising of things that ought to be held 
sacred.” 

These words were faintly reminiscent to Mr. Hazlitt, 
and he summoned them up: “In short a little like me, 
after all.” 

“Perhaps a little bit. I know what you mean,” an¬ 
swered his former wife; and then, as he laughed at this 
reply, she saw that it was funny, and she began to laugh 
too. But laughter was too much for her strained nerves, 
and as she laughed she also cried, and the most conven¬ 
ient place to cry on was Hazlitt’s shoulder. They clung 
together, feeling their feet slipping on the brink of that 
unfathomable abyss—the younger generation. 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


P RINCESSES are usually practical people, but we 
Americans, whose ideas of princesses are founded 
rather on fairy tales than on history, allow our¬ 
selves to be shocked and surprised when we discover 
this trait in them. 

The Princess di Sangatano was practical; she was 
noble, dignified, unselfish, patient, subtle, still extremely 
handsome at thirty-nine, and—or but—practical. She 
had just married her young daughter excellently. She 
had not done this, however, by sitting still and being 
dignified and noble. She had done it by going pleasantly 
to the houses of women whom she disliked; by flattering 
men in whom even her subtlety found few subjects for 
flattery; by indorsing the policy of a cardinal, of whose 
policy as a matter of fact she disapproved. Nor did she 
feel that her conduct in this respect was open to criticism. 
On the contrary, there was nothing which the princess 
viewed with a more satisfactory sense of duty done than 
the marriage of her daughter. 

And now she was beginning to recognize that her son 
must be launched by similar methods. The launching 
of Raimundo was something of a problem. He had much 
to recommend him; he was good-looking, gay and sweet- 
tempered; he loved his mother, and was not naughtier 
than other boys of his age; but he lacked the determined 
industry likely to make him successful. It was impos¬ 
sible to consider a learned profession for him, and even 
102 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


103 


for diplomacy, in which the princess could easily have 
found him a place, Raimundo was a little too impulsive. 
And so his mother, working it out, came to the conclusion 
that a business—a business that would like to own a 
young prince and would need Raimundo’s knowledge of 
Italians and Italy—would be the best chance; and so, of 
course, she thought of America—her native land. Yes, 
though few people remembered the fact, the princess had 
been born in the United States. She had left it as a 
small child, her mother having remarried—an Italian— 
and she had been brought up in Italy thenceforth. By 
circumstance and environment, by marriage and religion 
and choice, she had become utterly an Italian. She be¬ 
trayed this by her belief that America—commercial Amer¬ 
ica—would respect and desire a prince. And hardly had 
she reached this conclusion when she met Charlotte 
Haines. 

They met quite by accident. The princess during a 
short stay in Venice was visiting her mother’s old friend, 
the Contessa Carini-Bon. The Carini-Bon palace, as all 
good sightseers know, is not on the Grand Canal, but 
tucked away at the junction of two of the smaller canals. 
It is a late Renaissance palace, built of the white granite 
that turns blackest, and it is decorated with Turks’ heads 
over the arches of the windows, and contains the most 
beautiful tapestries in Italy. The princess, who since 
the war did not commit the extravagance of having her 
own gondola in Venice, had walked to the palace, through 
many narrow streets over tiny bridges, and under porticos, 
and having arrived at the side door was standing 
a minute in conversation with the concierge—also an old 


104 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


friend—discussing his son who had been wounded on the 
Piave, and the curse of motor boats on the Grand Canal, 
and the peculiar habits of the forestieri, and other uni¬ 
versal topics, when she saw, across the empty courtyard, 
that a gondola had appeared at the steps. 

It was a magnificent gondola; the two men were in 
white with blue sashes edged with gold fringe; blue 
ribbons fluttered from their broad-brimmed hats; their 
oars were striped blue and white; and the gondola itself 
shone with fresh black paint relieved here and there by 
heavy gold. In the front there was a small bouquet of 
roses and daises in the little brass stand that carried the 
lamp by night. Out of this, hardly touching the proffered 
arm of the gondolier, stepped a pretty woman, her white 
draperies and pearls contrasting with her smooth dark 
hair and alert brown eyes. She asked in execrable 
Italian whether it were possible to “visitare” the palazzo. 
The concierge, in that liquid beautiful voice which so 
many Italians of all classes possess, replied that it was 
utterly impossible—that occasionally, when the contessa 
was not in Venice, certain people bringing letters 
were permitted, but at present the contessa was at 
home. 

The lady did not understand all of this, and was not at 
her best when crossed in her pursuit of ideal beauty and 
without a language in which to argue the point. She kept 
repeating “Non e possible?” and “Perche?” and never 
appearing to understand the answer, until in despair the 
concierge looked pathetically at the princess. Following 
his glance Charlotte, bursting with a sense that she was 
somehow being done out of the rights of an American con- 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


105 


noisseur, broke into fluent French. Was it, she asked, 
really impossible to see the tapestries? How could such 
things be? She was told they were the best trapestries in 
all Italy; tapestries were her specialty. She knew herself 
in tapestries. 

The princess courteously repeated the concierge’s ex¬ 
planation; and so these two women, born not two hundred 
miles away from each other in the state of Ohio, stood for 
a few minutes and conversed in Venice in the language of 
the boulevards. Perhaps it was some latent sense of kin¬ 
ship that made the princess feel sorry for Charlotte. She 
told her to wait a moment, and went on up to see the 
contessa. 

When the first greetings were over she explained that 
there was a very pretty young American woman down¬ 
stairs who was bitterly disappointed at not being able to 
see the tapestries. 

“Good,” said the contessa. “I’m delighted to hear it.” 
She was very old and wrinkled and bright-eyed, and she 
had a habit of flicking the end of her nose with her fore¬ 
finger. “These Americans—I hear their terrible voices 
all day long in the canals. They have all the money in 
the world and most of the energy, but they cannot have 
everything. They cannot see my tapestries.” 

“And that is a pleasure to you?” 

The contessa nodded. “Certainly. One of the few I 
have left.” 

The princess sighed. “I am more of an American than 
I supposed,” she said. 

The contessa hastened to reassure her: “My dear 
Lisa! You! There is nothing of it about you.” 


106 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


The princess was too remote from her native land to 
resent this reassurance. 

She continued thoughtfully: “There must be. I am a 
little bit kind. Americans are, you know. If anyone 
runs for the doctor in the middle of the night at a Con¬ 
tinental hotel it always turns out to be an American. 
The English think they are officious and we Italians think 
they are too stupid to know when they are imposed upon, 
but it isn’t either. It’s kindness. The English are just, 
and the French are clear-sighted, but Americans are kind. 
You know I can’t bear to think of that young creature 
loving tapestries and not being able ever to see yours.” 

“My dear child, if you feel like that!” The contessa 
touched the bell, and when in due time Luigi appeared, 
she gave orders that the lady waiting below was to be 
allowed to see the tapestries in the dining room and the 
salas. “But not in here, Luigi; no matter how much she 
gives you not in here—and let her know that these are 
much the best ones. So, like that we are all satisfied.” 

An evening or so after this the two women met again; 
this time at a musicale given by a lady as international as 
the socialist party. Charlotte, still in spotless white and 
pearls, came quickly across the room to thank the prin¬ 
cess, whom she recognized immediately. She said quite 
the right things about the tapestries, about Venice, about 
Italy; and the princess, who was susceptible to praise of 
the country which had become her own, was pleased with 
Charlotte. 

“One is so starved for beauty in America,” Mrs. Haines 
complained. “I’m like a greedy child for it when I come 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


107 


here; you can form no idea how terrible New York is.” 
The princess dimly remembered rows of chocolate-colored 
houses—the New York of the early ’90’s. She was ready 
to sympathize with Charlotte. 

“Why don’t you come here and live—such beautiful old 
palaces to be had for nothing—for what Americans con¬ 
sider nothing/’ she suggested. 

Charlotte rolled her large brown eyes. “If only I 
could; but my husband wouldn’t hear of it. He actually 
likes America. Italy means nothing to him.” 

Lisa was destined to hear more of Charlotte’s husband 
before she took in the fact that he was the president of the 
Haines Heating Corporations. It made a difference. It 
wasn’t that she didn’t really like Charlotte—Lisa would 
never have been nice to her if she hadn’t really liked her; 
but neither would she have been so extremely nice to 
her if Haines had not been at the head of such a hopeful 
company. It was a wonderfully lucky combination of 
circumstances. 

And to no one did it appear more lucky than to Char¬ 
lotte, to whom the princess seemed so well-bred, so civi¬ 
lized, so expert and so wise—the living embodiment of all 
that Charlotte herself wished to become. 

And then she knew Venice so wonderfully; she was 
better than any guidebook. She knew of gardens and 
palaces that no one else had heard of. She knew of old 
wellheads and courtyards. A few people went to see the 
Giorgione in the Seminario, but only the princess insisted 
on Charlotte’s seeing the library, with its row of windows 
on the Canal, and its beautiful old books going up to the 


108 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


ceiling, and the painted panel that looked like books until, 
sliding it, you found it was the stairway to the gallery— 
all these delights Charlotte owed to her new friend. 

And as the moon grew larger—on the evenings when 
Charlotte wasn’t dining with Americans at the Lido or at 
that delightful new restaurant on the other side of the 
Canal, where you sat in the open air and ate at bare tables 
in such a primitive way—the two women would go out in 
Charlotte’s gondola—sometimes through the labyrinth of 
the little canals, but more often the other way—past 
some tall, empty, ocean-going steamer anchored off the 
steps of the church of the Redentore—out to the 
Giudecca, where they could see the lighthouse at the en¬ 
trance to the port, past a huge dredge which looked in the 
misty moonlight, as Charlotte said, like a dragon with its 
mouth open; on and on with their two gondoliers, to 
where everything was marsh and moonlight. 

The princess had often noticed that Americans in 
Europe explained themselves a good deal. Perhaps 
citizens of a republic must explain themselves socially; 
after all, a princess does not need explanation. Charlotte 
on these evenings explained herself. Even as a child, 
she said, she had been reaching out for beauty—a less 
sophisticated person would have called it culture—when 
she had married she had thought only of the romance of 
it—she had been very much in love with her husband, ten 
years older than she, already successful; a dominating 
nature, she had not thought then that they were out of 
sympathy about the impersonal aspects of life—art, 
beauty. It was natural for Charlotte to slip into the dis¬ 
cussion of her own problem—the problem of the Ameri- 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


109 


can husband—so kind, so virtuous, so successful, but 
alas, so indifferent to the finer arts of living. 

“What are we to do, we American women?” Charlotte 
wailed. “We grow up, we educate ourselves to know the 
good from the bad, the ugly from the beautiful—and then 
we fall in love and marry some man to whom it is all a 
closed book; who is sometimes jealous of interests he 
cannot share. Sometimes it seems as if we should crush 
all that is best in us in order to be good wives to our hus¬ 
bands. You Europeans are so lucky—you and your men 
have the same tastes and the same interests.” 

“At least,” said the princess politely, “your men are 
very generous in allowing you to come abroad without 
them. Ours wouldn’t have that for a minute.” 

Charlotte laughed. “Our men would rather we came 
alone than asked them to go with us. You can’t imagine 
how bored my husband is in Europe. He speaks no lan¬ 
guage but his own, and instead of meeting interesting 
people he goes to his nearest office and entirely reor¬ 
ganizes it.” 

The princess had always wanted to know whether these 
deserted American husbands had other love affairs; or, 
rather, not so much whether they had them as whether 
they were permitted to have them. Here was an ex¬ 
cellent opportunity for finding out. She put her question, 
as she felt, delicately, but Charlotte was obviously a little 
shocked. 

“Oh, no!” she said quickly. “At least Dan doesn’t. 
Dan isn’t a bit horrid in ways like that.” 

Lisa felt inclined to disagree with the adjective. 
Human, she would have called it. At the same time she 


110 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


felt extremely sympathetic with Charlotte’s situation. 
She knew how she herself would have suffered if she had 
married a competent business man who lived in a brown- 
stone front with a long drawing-room like a tunnel, and 
talked nothing but business at dinner. She inquired 
whether Mr. Haines was in Wall Street, and heard that 
he was the head of the Haines Heating Corporations. 
Then making more extended inquiries in her practical 
Latin way, she saw that she had found the right opening 
for Raimundo. 

Before Charlotte left Venice she invited the princess 
and her son to pay her a visit in New York that winter; 
she urged it warmly. For to be honest Charlotte was 
in somewhat the same position in regard to the princess 
that the princess was in regard to Charlotte. The fact 
that she was a princess warmed the younger woman’s 
liking. 

Lisa did not jump at the invitation. It was her duty 
to accept it, but she was not eager. 

“I haven’t crossed the Atlantic since I was eight years 
old,” she said. “Besides, how would Mr. Haines feel 
about us? If Italy bores him, wouldn’t two resident 
Italians bore him more?” 

“You would start with the handicap of being my 
friends,” Charlotte answered, “but he’d be perfectly civil, 
and in the end he would learn to appreciate you. He’s 
not a fool, Dan. He’s wise about people, if he can only 
get over his prejudices. But he’d be away most of the 
time. He always goes to California in January to look 
after his oil wells or something.” 

It was not quite the princess’ idea that Dan Haines 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


111 


should be away all the time. He must see Raimundo, 
and be charmed by his youth and gayety, while she, the 
princess, would provide a background of solidity and 
Old World standards. She talked the matter over with 
her son—a thin, eagle-nosed boy of twenty. He was en¬ 
thusiastic at the prospect, but more, his mother feared, 
because he had fallen in love with Charlotte’s niece, 
whom he had met at the Lido, than because he took his 
future in the Haines Heating Corporations seriously. 
Nevertheless Charlotte’s invitation was accepted. 

Yet many times before January came she woke up in 
the night, cold with horror at the idea of this journey to 
an unknown land. She had hardly been out of Italy for 
twenty years. And even after she had actually sailed, 
walking the inclosed deck at night, while Raimundo was 
playing bridge, she shrank from the undertaking. She 
was very lonely, the poor princess. She and the prince 
had had their own troubles and disagreements, but these 
had gradually passed, and she had come to look forward 
to his companionship for her old age—a quiet prospect of 
settling their children and bringing up grandchildren, and 
making two ends meet at the dilapitated Sangatano villa. 
And then he had failed her; he had died during the war; 
and the princess had found that all her little world died 
about the same time. The old circle in Rome was gone, 
ruined, embittered, changed and scattered. The pleas j 
ant clever friendly educated group of her friends were a 
group no longer. And she was changed too. The war— 
or, rather, the aftermath of war—had brought out in her 
something different from her beloved country of adoption. 
She was not willing to sit down and lament the passing of 


112 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


her own order. She could not weep because the peasants 
no longer rose as you passed their houses. She had even 
a suspicion that the new order was not so terrible, and this 
put her old friends out of sympathy with her. They 
remembered that she was, after all, an American. 
Perhaps it was as well she was going away that winter, 
for she was very lonely at home. 

Her steamer chair was next that of an American 
gentleman, a short, fat, round-faced man, who bore out 
her theory that Americans were kind, by the most careful 
and unobtrusive attention. The name of Haines was in¬ 
troduced into the conversation, and evidently inspired the 
fat man’s interest. She asked if he knew Mr. Haines. 
No, not really. She saw that he would like to have been 
able to say that he did. He knew a great deal about 
Haines, which he was more than ready to tell. Haines 
was a man whom many people thought dangerously lib¬ 
eral in his ideas of handling his labor, and yet ultra¬ 
conservative in his investments. His ideas worked out, 
though—a brilliant man—creative—and then the usual 
story of having begun life on nothing. 

“Really?” murmured the princess, not at all surprised, 
because she supposed all rich Americans began life on 
nothing. 

Still, she was glad of this increase in her knowledge of 
her host. He was evidently one of these tremendous 
commercial powers. Charlotte’s account had hardly 
prepared her for this, but then, she supposed Charlotte 
lived so surrounded by these vigorous fortune-makers 
that she had lost her sense of proportion about them. 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


113 


The possibility pleased the princess. After all, there 
were other heads of large industries besides Haines. 

She conveyed her extended hopes to Raimundo when 
about noon he appeared on deck, having had already a 
game of squash, a swim, and a turn on deck with a 
very pretty opera singer. 

“This is a great opportunity, Raimundo,” she said, 
“if you take it in the right way.” 

“Oh, I shall take it right,” said the boy, sitting down 
beside her and studying his long, slim foot in profile. “I 
shall, of course, make love to the beautiful Charlotte.” 

“You will do nothing of the kind.” 

“For what are we crossing the ocean?” replied her son. 
“Oh, I have read transatlantic fiction. American men 
do not mind your making love to their wives—because it 
saves them the time it would take to do it themselves; 
and then also it confirms their belief that they have ac¬ 
quired a valuable article.” 

“You must not talk like this, even to me,” said his 
mother. “You are quite wrong. Charlotte, like most 
of the American women I have met, is extremely cool and 
virtuous.” 

“Of course,” said Raimundo, “you offer them only a 
dumb doglike devotion.” And looking into her face he 
sketched a look of dumb doglike devotion at which she 
could not help laughing. 

Charlotte was at the wharf to welcome them, accom¬ 
panied by a competent manservant to do the work of the 
customs. Mr. Haines, it appeared, was in California. 
The princess expressed polite regret at hearing this. 


114 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


“Oh, he’ll be back,” answered his wife, and if she did 
not add “quite soon enough” her tone conveyed it, and 
Raimundo darted a quick impish glance at his mother. 

As they waited while the princess’ maid put back the 
trays of the trunks Lisa tried to convey her admiration 
of the harbor. Of course a great deal has been written 
about the approach to New York by sea, but as the prin¬ 
cess, like most Europeans, had never read anything 
about America, it all came as a great surprise to her. It 
seemed to come as a surprise to Charlotte too. 

“Beautiful?” she said incredulously. “After Venice?” 

“Different,” answered the princess. 

“I should say it was different,” said Charlotte. 
“There—I think those horrible men have finished mauling 
your trunks, and we can go.” 

It was on the tip of Lisa’s tongue to say that she found 
the American customs officials perfectly civil, and that 
her experiences on European frontiers had been much 
more disagreeable, but as she began to speak she was 
suddenly conscious that Charlotte did not really want 
to think well of her native land, and she stopped. 

“Oh, I say,” cried the little prince as they came out of 
the cavelike shadow of the pier into the cloudless light 
of the winter day, “what a jolly day! I shan’t be re¬ 
sponsible for anything I do if you have many days like 
this.” 

“Oh, we have lots of these,” returned Charlotte, signal¬ 
ing to her footman. “We have nothing else—no half 
lights, no mists, no mystery.” And they got into her 
little French town car and started on their way uptown. 

The princess stared out of her window in silence, noting 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


115 


the disappearance of the chocolate-colored houses, the 
beauty of the shops—and yes, even of the shoppers. 
But her son was not gifted with reticence. If his im¬ 
pressions had been disagreeable he might have been 
silent, but as they were flattering he saw no reason for 
suppressing them. He thought Fifth Avenue wonderful. 

“And, my eye,” he kept saying—an expression he had 
learned early in life from an English groom—“what a lot 
of pretty girls, and what a lot of cars! I did not know 
there were so many motor cars in the world.” 

Charlotte smiled as if she knew he meant to be kind, 
and suddenly laying her hand on the princess’ knee, she 
said, “Oh, I’m so afraid you’re going to hate it all, but you 
don’t know what it means to me to have you here.” 

The princess was touched. 

Yet it must be owned that Lisa found the next few 
weeks confusing—confusing, that is, if Charlotte were 
to be regarded as the starved prisoner of an alien culture. 
They were agreeable weeks; Raimundo was in the 
seventh heaven. He dined, danced, lunched, and danced 
again. He went into the country and tobogganed, and 
learned to walk on snowshoes. When asked how he was 
enjoying America he always made the same answer. 
“I shall never go home. My eye! What girls!” 

His mother enjoyed herself more mildly, and with cer¬ 
tain reservations. Erudite gentlemen were put next to 
her at dinner—a Frenchman who was a specialist on 
Chinese porcelains; a painter of Spanish birth; and 
several English novelists and poets who were either just 
beginning or just completing successful lecture tours of 
the United States; interesting men, in one way or another, 


116 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


yet—and yet—the princess asked herself if she had 
crossed the wide Atlantic simply to see this pale replica 
of a civilization she already knew. 

And something else puzzled and distressed her. Her 
friend Charlotte seemed to her the freest of created 
beings—freer than any woman the princess had ever 
known, to make of her life anything she wanted to make 
of it. But Charlotte’s life seemed to lack purpose and 
dignity. Charlotte liked to feel that learned men came 
to her house, but her state of nerves did not always allow 
her to listen to what they said. Serious books were on 
her table, and sometimes in her hands, and yet her day 
lacked those long safe hours of leisure in which such 
books are read. 

There was no doubt that a realer, more vital Charlotte 
appeared buying a new hat or playing a game of bridge 
or asking someone to dinner, than the Charlotte who 
lamented the lost beauty of an old world. And yet she 
wasn’t just a fraud. 

She was not an early riser, and if toward eleven o’clock 
the princess penetrated to Charlotte’s bedroom, over¬ 
looking the park, she would find her still in bed—a price¬ 
less Italian bed—said to have been made for Bianca 
Capello—propped by lace pillows, and reading a fashion 
paper. And something else worried the princess—the 
house, the way it was managed. It was comfortable, 
well heated—too well; there was always delicious food 
and too much of it, but Charlotte lived in her house as in 
a hotel. If butchers overcharged or footmen stole, 
Charlotte’s only feeling was that they were tiresome dis¬ 
honest people with whom she wished to have nothing to 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 117 

do. Abroad, she said, one’s servants did not do such 
things. 

The princess disagreed. They did not have the same 
opportunities, she said; the mistresses were more vigilant. 
The extravagance of the Haines household actually hurt 
her, coming as she did from a group where extravagance 
had ceased to be possible. But Charlotte would not 
admit that she had any responsibility. 

“Really, dear Lisa,” she said almost crossly, “I have 
better things to think about than housekeeping.” 

Well, the princess wondered what those things were. 

As the days went by and as small party succeeded 
small party, Lisa noted that she met no American men— 
or hardly any—at Charlotte’s house, and she asked 
finally why this was. 

“Do they work so hard they can’t dine out?” 

“No—or, rather, yes, they work hard; but that’s not 
why I don’t ask them. They’re so uninteresting—you 
would be bored to death by them.” 

“I’d rather like to try,” said the princess mildly. 

Charlotte contracted her straight eyebrows in thought. 
“I’ll try to think of some not too awful,” she said. 

And a few evenings afterward the princess found her¬ 
self next to a nice little chattering gentleman who spoke 
Italian better than she did, and made lace with his own 
hands. On the other side was a former ambassador— 
a charming person, but of no nation or age. She had 
known him in Paris for years. She sighed gently. She 
wanted to meet a financial colossus. She liked men— 
real ones. 

Needless to say that in the Haines house she had her 


118 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


own sitting room—a delightful little room hung in old 
crimson velvet, with a wood fire always blazing on the 
hearth. The first day when Charlotte brought her into 
it she apologized for a picture over the mantelpiece. 

“The things one puts in the spare room!” she said. 
“My husband bought that picture at an auction once, 
because it reminded him of the farm he was brought up 
on. I didn’t dare give it away, but there’s no reason why 
you should be inflicted with it.” And she raised her arm 
to take it down. 

“No! Leave it; I like it,” said the princess. “It’s 
delightful—that blue sky and clouds.” 

She was quite sincere in saying she liked it. She did. 
Often she would look up from her book and let her eyes 
fall with pleasure on the small green and blue and white 
canvas, and wonder in what farming district Mr. Haines 
had been brought up—and in what capacity. 

The New York climate affected the princess’ ability 
to sleep. She read often late into the night. One 
night—or rather morning—for it must have been three 
o’clock—she was interrupted by a visit from her son. 
He often dropped in on his way to bed to sketch for her 
the strange but in his opinion agreeable habits of the 
American girl. But this evening he did not burst out 
into his usual narrative. He entered silently, and stood 
for some seconds silent. 

Then he said “Our host has returned.” 

“Oh,” said the princess with pleasure, for, after all, 
this was the purpose of the long excursion. 

“How unexpected!” 

Her son gave a short laugh. “I believe you,” he said. 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


119 


“Unexpected is just the word. It sometimes seems as 
if, in spite of all that has been written on the subject, 
husbands would never learn the tactlessness of the un¬ 
expected return.” 

“Raimundo, what do you mean?” asked his mother 
with a sinking heart. 

The boy hesitated. “The lovely Charlotte,” he said, 
“is all that you told me she was—cool and virtuous—so 
much so that it never occurs to her that others may be 
different. Tonight I brought her home from a dull 
party. We got talking; we sat down in the drawing¬ 
room. The back of a lovely white neck bent over a 
table was so near my lips—and the husband enters.” 

“Was there a scene?” 

“Oh, no. It was worse. We chatted a trots for a 
time.” 

The princess drew a long breath. “Perhaps he did 
not see; but really, Raimundo—” 

“Oh, he saw,” said the prince. “He maneuvered the 
suspicious Charlotte off to bed, and then he suggested 
without a trace of anger or criticism that I should leave 
the house in the morning; and really, my dear mother, 
I’m afraid I shall have to do it. I’m so sorry, I know 
you’ll feel annoyed with me, but it is hard to remember 
that no woman means anything here. I just manage to 
remember it with the girls; but the married women— 
well, one can’t always be so sure; not so sure, at least as 
one is with Charlotte. There was no excuse for me— 
none.” 

“You’re an awkward, ungrateful boy,” said his mother, 
with an absence of temper that made her pronouncement 


120 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


more severe. “I think I shall go downstairs now myself 
and have a talk with Mr. Haines.” 

“You’ll do the talking,” answered her son. “He 
isn’t exactly a chatty man.” 

But the princess was not discouraged. She could not 
see that she could do any harm to Raimundo’s prospects, 
since evidently all was now lost, and she felt she owed 
it to Charlotte to repair, if she could, any damage the 
boy’s folly had occasioned. 

The lights on the stairs and corridors were all going; 
they were controlled by switches working, to the princess’ 
continual surprise, from all sorts of unexpected places. 
She had no difficulty in finding her way to the drawing¬ 
room, on the second story, where Raimundo told her the 
interview had taken place. 

As she opened the door she saw that a tall thin man in 
gray morning clothes was standing alone in the middle 
of the room, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar 
stuck in the corner of his mouth, quite in the American 
manner. He was pale, pale as his blond smooth hair, 
now beginning to be gray, and everything about him was 
long—his hands, his jaw, his legs like a cavalryman’s. 
He was turned three-quarters toward the door, and he 
moved nothing but his eyes as the princess entered. 

There was always something neat and finished about 
the way Lisa moved, and the way she held herself, the 
way she put her small steady feet on the ground; and 
this was particularly evident now in the way she opened 
the door, moved the train of her long tea gown out of the 
way and shut the door again. She did all this in silence, 
for it was her theory to let the other person speak first. 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


121 


It was a theory that she had had no difficulty in putting 
into practice during her stay in America, but it was now 
forced upon her attention that Haines had the same 
theory, for he remained perfectly silent, and something 
told her that he was likely to continue so. The fate of 
interviews is often decided thus in the first few seconds. 

She spoke first. “I am the Princess di Sangatano,” 
she said. 

He nodded. 

“My son has just told me about the incident of this 
evening.” 

He nodded again, and then he said, “You want to 
discuss it?” 

His voice was low and not without a nasal drawl, but 
the baffling thing about it was the entire absence of any 
added suggestion of tone or emphasis. There were the 
bare words themselves and nothing more—no hint as to 
whether he himself wished or didn’t wish to discuss it— 
approved or didn’t approve of her intention. 

“Yes, I do,” she replied. 

“Better sit down then.” 

The princess did sit down, folding her hands in her 
lap, drawing her elbows to her side, and sitting very 
erect. She did not say to herself, like Cleopatra: “Hath 
he seen majesty?” but some such thought was not far 
from her. 

For twenty years she had been acknowledged to be 
an important person, and this had left its trace upon her 
manner. She knew it had. 

“Are you very angry at this silly boy of mine?” she 
said. 


122 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


Haines shook his head—that is to say, he wagged it 
twice from side to side. 

“Not at Charlotte, I hope?” 

Another shake of the head. 

The princess felt a little annoyed. “Then what in 
heaven’s name do you feel, if anything?” she said. 

“I feel kinda bored,” he answered; and as Lisa gave an 
exclamation that expressed irritation and lack of compre¬ 
hension he added, again without any added color in his 
voice: “How did you expect me to feel?” 

“Oh, either more or less,” answered Lisa. “Either 
you should be furious and shake Charlotte until her teeth 
rattled, and fling my boy into the street, or else you 
should be wise enough to see it doesn’t make the 
least difference—and be human—and sensible—and— 
and—” 

“—and give your son a job,” said Haines quietly. 

The princess was startled. She drew herself up still 
more. “I have not asked you to give my son a job,” 
she said. 

He took his cigar out of his mouth, and she noticed 
that his strange long pale hands were rather handsome. 

“Look here,” he said, “answer this honestly: Didn’t 
you have some such idea in your head when you decided 
to come here? Look at me.” 

She did look at him, at first rather expecting to look 
him down, and then so much interested in what she saw— 
something intense and real and fearless—that she forgot 
everything else—forgot everything except that she was 
thirty-nine years old, and had lived a great deal in the 
world and yet had not met very many real people, and 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 123 

now—■ Then she remembered that she must answer 
him. 

“Oh, yes,” she said; “I had it in mind.” 

“Well,” said Haines, “that’s what bores me.” He 
began to walk up and down the room, somewhat, Lisa 
thought, as if he were dictating a letter. “Poor Char¬ 
lotte! She’s always making these wonderful dis¬ 
coveries—and they always turn out the same way—they 
always want something. You—why she’s been talking 
about you—and writing about you. You were the most 
noble, the most disinterested, the most aristocratic— 
She would hardly speak to me because I asked her why 
you were making this long journey. For love of her 
society, she thought. She thinks I’m a perfect bear, but, 
my God, how can a man sit round and see his wife ex¬ 
ploited by everyone she comes in contact with—from the 
dealer who sells her fake antiques to the grandee who 
offers her fake friendship?” 

“I can’t let you say that,” said the princess, too much 
interested to be as angry as she felt she ought to be. “I 
have never offered anyone fake friendship.” 

“I didn’t say you had.” 

“Pooh!” said she. “That’s beneath you. You should 
at least be as honest, as you ask other people to be.” 

This speech seemed to please him—to please him as a 
child might please him. He came and sat down opposite 
to her, looked at her for a moment and then smiled at her. 
His smile was sweet and intimate as a caress. 

“Come,” he said, “I believe you’re all right.” 

“I am,” she answered. “Even a little bit more than 
that.” 


124 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


He sat there smoking and frankly studying her. “And 
yet,” he said after a moment, “they’re mostly not—you 
know—Charlotte’s discoveries. They’re mostly about as 
wrong as they can be.” 

“And they kinda bore you?” said the princess, to whom 
the phrase seemed amusing. He nodded, and she went 
on: “A good many things do, I imagine.” 

“Almost everything but my business. You don’t,” he 
added after a second; and there was something so simple 
and imperial in his manner that she did not think him 
insolent; in fact, to tell the truth, she was flattered. 
“You might tell me something about yourself,” he added. 

The princess was too human not to be delighted to obey 
this suggestion, and too well-bred to take an unfair ad¬ 
vantage of it. She talked a long time about herself, and 
then about the Haines Heating Corporations. 

And then they talked about him. In fact they talked 
all the rest of the night—as continuously as schoolgirls, 
as honestly as old friends, as ecstatically as lovers; and 
yet, of course, they were not schoolgirls or old friends, 
and even less lovers. They were two middle-aged people, 
so real and so fastidious in their different ways that they 
had not found many people whom they liked; and they 
had suddenly and utterly unexpectedly found each other. 

They were interrupted by the entrance of a housemaid 
with a broom and a duster. She gave a smothered excla¬ 
mation and withdrew. Haines looked at his watch. It 
was half past seven. 

He got up and pulled the curtains back. A pale 
clear pink-and-green winter morning was just beginning 
to shine upon the park, glittering in snow and ice. 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 125 

“At home,” said Lisa, “I should consider what we have 
just done as rather irregular.” 

“In this country,” he answered, “you can do anything 
if you have sufficient integrity to do it.” 

“How can I tell whether I have or not?” she 
asked. 

He smiled again. “I have enough for both,” he an¬ 
swered. “Luckily or unluckily”—and he sighed as he 
repeated it—“luckily or unluckily.” 

“Oh, luckily; luckily, of course,” said Lisa, though 
there was just a trace of annoyance in her voice that this 
was so clear. She held out her hand. 

“Good-by,” she said. 

He took her hand, and then from his great height he 
did something that no one had ever done to the princess 
before—he patted her on the head. “You’re all right,” 
he said, and sighed and turned away—as it were, 
dismissing her. 

She went upstairs to her own room—which seemed 
altered, as backgrounds do alter with changes in our¬ 
selves. It was no longer a room in Charlotte’s house but 
in Haines’; and she was leaving it, leaving it in a few 
hours. She did not debate that at all. She was going 
with her son, but there was something that must be done 
before she went—something that she must do for this 
new friends of hers whom she would never, probably, see 
again. 

She did not have much time to think it over, for when 
her breakfast tray came in, as usual, at nine, Charlotte 
came with it—striking just the note the princess hoped 
she wouldn’t strike—apology. 


126 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


“I suppose your son told you what happened last 
night. So silly. I’m so ashamed.” 

“Ashamed?” said the princess, and she noted that her 
tone had something of the neutrality of Haines’ own. 
She had copied him. 

“Ashamed of Dan,” answered Charlotte. “That’s so 
like him—not to understand—just to take the crude 
view of it. I haven’t seen him since, but I know so 
well how he would take a thing like that. As a matter 
of fact, I must tell you, Lisa—though I promised that I 
wouldn’t—Raimundo was asking my help. He wants to 
marry the little Haines girl; he wants me to bring you 
round. He knows you hate everything American—” 

“I don’t hate everything American,” said the princess, 
and again her voice sounded in her ears like Haines’. 

“This girl, you know, is Dan’s niece, and exactly like 
him. And now I’m afraid that will do for her, as far as 
you’re concerned. Of course you must hate Dan—the 
idea of him—and if you saw him—well, you will see him 
at dinner tonight.” 

The moment had come. The princess shook her head. 

“No,” she said, “I shan’t be at dinner tonight.” 

Charlotte looked at her and then broke out into pro¬ 
test: “No, no, you mustn’t go. Let Raimundo go, if 
he must, but not you. Don’t desert me, Lisa, because I 
have the misfortune to be married to a man who does not 
understand. Oh, to think that anything should have 
happened in my house that has hurt your feelings! I 
shall never forgive Dan—never! But don’t go—for my 
sake, Lisa.” 

“It’s for your sake I’m going, my dear.” 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


127 


“I don’t understand.” 

“I know you don’t, and it is going to be so difficult to 
explain.” The princess rose and, going to the looking- 
glass, stared at herself, pushed back her hair from her 
forehead, and then turned suddenly back to her friend. 
“I suppose I seem to you a terribly worn-out old 
creature.” 

“My dear!” cried Charlotte. “You seem to me the 
most elegant, the most mysterious, the most charming 
person I ever knew.” 

Lisa could not help smiling at this spontaneous out¬ 
burst. “Then,” she said, “let me tell you that the most 
charming person you ever knew has fallen in love with 
your husband.” Charlotte’s jaw literally dropped, and 
the princess went on: “Yes, last night when Raimundo 
came and told me what had happened, I went downstairs. 
I wanted to do what I could to protect you from his 
thoughtlessness. I went down expecting to see the kind 
of man you have painted your husband. Oh, Charlotte, 
what a terrible goose you are!” 

Even then Charlotte did not immediately understand. 
She continued to stare. At last she said, “You mean you 
liked Dan?” 

“I did much more than that. I thought him the most 
vital, the most exciting, the most romantic figure I had 
ever seen.” 

“Dan?” 

The princess nodded. “The power of the world in his 
hands—and so alone. I said just now I had fallen in 
love with him. Well, I suppose at my age one doesn’t 
fall in love, even if one talks to a man all night—” 


128 


THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 


“You and he talked all night?” 

“All night long—all night long.” 

Charlotte looked quickly at her friend, blinked her 
eyes, looked away and looked back again. It was not 
for nothing that her black eyebrows almost met—a sign, 
the physiognomists tell us, of a jealous nature. 

The whole process of her thought was on her face. 
She had never been jealous of her husband in all her 
life before—but then, she had never before brought him 
face to face with perfection. She summed it up in her 
first sentence. 

“Dan is no fool,” she said. “He felt as you did?” 

The princess smiled. “Ah, Charlotte!” she said. “An 
Italian woman would not have asked that. You must 
find that out for yourself.” 

There was a short silence, and then Charlotte got up 
and walked toward the door. 

It was evident that she was going to find out at once. 
But the princess had one more salutary blow for her. 
She was standing now with her elbow on the mantelpiece 
and her eyes fixed on the little spare-room picture, and 
just as Charlotte reached the door Lisa spoke. 

“Oh!” she said. “One other thing. Don’t despise 
this little picture that your husband bought. It’s the 
best thing you have.” 

This was a little too much. “Not better than my 
Guardis,” Charlotte wailed, for she would never think of 
disputing the princess’ judgment. 

“The Guardis are like you, Charlotte,” said the prin¬ 
cess; “they are excellent copies. But this little picture 
is original—it’s American—it’s the real thing.” 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


AN felt a sense of drama as she rang the bell of 



her friend’s house. The houses in the row were 


all exactly alike, built of a new small dark-red 


brick, and each was set on a little square of new turf, as 
smooth and neat as an emerald-green handkerchief. To 
make matters harder, the house numbers were not honest 
numerals, but loops of silver ribbon festooned above the 
front door bell, so that Nan had almost mistaken the five 
she was looking for the three next door. 

She had not seen her friend for four years; and four 
years is a long time—a sixth of your entire life when 
you are only twenty-four. It seemed to her that they 
had been immensely young when they had parted; and 
yet she had never been too young to appreciate Letitia— 
even that first day back in the dark ages of childhood 
when they had found their desks next to each other at 
school. Even then Letitia had been captivating—lovely 
to look at, and gay; and, though it seemed a strange word 
to use about a child in short dresses, elegant. She came 
of the best blood in America; indeed, in the American- 
liistory class it was quite embarrassing because so many 
of the statesmen and generals whom the teacher praised 
or condemned were ancestors of Letitia’s. She was a red- 
gold creature with deep sky-blue eyes, and, at that remote 
period, freckles, which she had subsequently succeeded 
in getting rid of. 

She had charmed Nan from the first moment—none 


129 


130 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


the less that Nan understood her weaknesses as well as 
her charms. No one could say that Letitia was untruth¬ 
ful; to lie was quite outside her code; but if at seven 
minutes past eight she was late, she said it was barely 
eight o’clock, and if you were late she said it was almost 
a quarter past. Someone had once observed to her 
mother that Letitia distorted facts, and Mrs. Lewis, had 
replied, after an instant of deliberation, “Well, 
undoubtedly she molds them.” 

She molded t T am particularly in conversation with the 
opposite sex; she could not bear any competition as far 
as her admirers were concerned. Strangely enough, 
though Letitia was much the prettier and more amusing 
of the two girls, she was always a little jealous of Nan, 
whereas Nan was never at all jealous of her. Letty her¬ 
self explained the reason for this once in one of her flashes 
of vision: “It’s because whatever you get from people is 
your own—founded on a rock, Nan; but I fake it so—I 
get a lot that doesn’t belong to me—and so I’m always 
in terror of being found out.” 

After their schooldays the girls had seen a great deal of 
each other. Nan’s father was a professor in a small 
college, and it was pleasant to be asked to stay with the 
Lewises in their tiny New York flat. It was also agree¬ 
able to Letitia to be invited to share in commencement 
festivities with their prolonged opportunities to fascinate. 
Then Nan’s father had accepted an appointment in 
China; but the separation did not lessen the intimacy— 
perhaps it even increased it; you can write so freely to a 
person living thousands of miles away. Letitia had 
written with the utmost freedom to her friend, who at 


DEVOTED WOMEN 131 

that distance could not in any way be regarded as a 
competitor. 

Letitia always described the new people she was seeing, 
and Nan noticed that the first mention of Roger in her 
letters had in it something sharply defined and significant: 

“I sat next the most romantic-looking boy I ever saw. 
No, my dear, no occasion for excitement; he must be 
years younger than I am; but the most beautiful person 
you ever saw—hollow-cheeked, broad-browed like that 
picture you adore so of Father Damien, oh perhaps I’m 
thinking of an illustration of Rossetti; and he can talk, 
too, I promise you. He’s an experimental chemist in 
some great manufacturing company, which at this age—” 

In the next letter it appeared that he wasn’t really years 
younger—hardly a year; in fact, nothing to speak of. 
Letitia began to write a good deal about the scientific 
point of view—its stimulating quality—its powers of 
observation—its justice—“almost as just as you are, 
Nan.” 

Nan waited for each letter as if it were the next install¬ 
ment of a serial. She had seen Letitia through a good 
many such affairs, and she knew that before long her 
friend would stage a quarrel. It was a good way, Letty 
said, of finding out how much he cared; although, as a 
matter of fact, Nan noticed that she never precipitated it 
until she was sure the unfortunate man in question cared 
enough to be at a disadvantage. 

But in Roger’s case, when she had said sadly, “I’m 
afraid, Mr. Rossiter, that this means our friendship is 
ended,” he had answered without a word of pleading, 
“Yes, I’m quite sure it does.” 


132 DEVOTED WOMEN 

Letitia, a little startled, had asked, “What? You wish 
it too?” 

“No,” he had said; “but the fact that you do ends it 
automatically.” 

She had some difficulty in extricating herself from 
her own ultimatum. Naturally, her respect for him 
increased. 

“I’m almost glad you are not here, Nan,” she wrote. 
“He is so honest he could not help loving your honesty. 
I feel as if together, somehow, you would both find me 
out.” 

She inclosed a little photograph of him to show Nan 
what a splendid-looking person he was; but it was not his 
beauty she dwelt upon, but his straight, keen eyes and the 
fine firmness of his mouth—not the determination of the 
self-conscious bulldog, which so many people assume in 
a photograph, but just a nice steely fixity of purpose. 
Yes, Nan, far away in China, with plenty of leisure for 
reflection, found that for the first time she envied her 
friend. 

A little later a real honest quarrel was reported. Le¬ 
titia, habitually unpunctual, was three-quarters of an 
hour late for an appointment, and he simply had not 
waited for her. Under her anger Nan could catch her 
admiration for the first man who had dared not to wait. 

“I explained to him that I could not help it, and all he 
said was: ‘You could have helped it if I had been a 
train.’ Of course, everything is over—he does not know 
how to behave.” 

No letter at all came in the next mail, and the 
announcement of her engagement in the one following: 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


133 


“Fortunately—and wonderfully—mamma likes him, 
for, as you know, it would have been awfully hard to 
marry a man if she hated him.” 

It would indeed; or, rather, Nan thought, it would have 
been difficult for Letitia to fall in love with a man Mrs. 
Lewis did not approve of, for she had a wonderful gift of 
phrase—just, but cruel—by which budding sentiments 
could be cut off as by a knife. Nan had seen her more 
than once prune away a growing romance from Letitia’s 
life with a deft, hideously descriptive sentence. Each 
time Nan had been in complete sympathy with her. 

She usually did agree with Mrs. Lewis, who was the 
most brilliant woman she had ever known—and almost 
the most alarming. She saw life not only steadily and 
whole, and in the darkest colors, but she reported most 
frankly on what she saw. Frauds, or even people mildly 
artificial, dreaded Mrs. Lewis as they did the plague. 
Letitia herself would have dreaded her if she had not 
been her daughter. It said a great deal for Roger Ros- 
siter’s integrity that his future mother-in-law liked him. 
It also said something for his financial situation. Mrs. 
Lewis had always intended her child to marry someone 
with money. 

“It is not exactly that I’m mercenary,” she said. “I 
don’t want Letitia to be specially magnificent; but I want 
her to have everything else, and money too. Why not?” 

So when Nan heard the marriage had actually taken 
place, she felt pretty sure Roger must have enough to 
support Letty comfortably. It was really astonishing, 
she thought, how much she knew about him, this man she 
had never seen, more than she knew about lots of people 


134 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


she saw constantly. And so, as she rang the bell of his 
house, she had something of the same excitement that she 
might have had on seeing the curtain rise on a play about 
which she had heard endless discussion. At last she was 
going to be able to judge it for herself. 

A Swedish maidservant came to the door—a nice- 
looking woman with an exaggerated opinion of her own 
knowledge of English. She almost refused Nan admit¬ 
tance—just to be on the safe side; but Letitia’s cheerful 
shout intervened. 

“Is that you at last, Nan?” 

The two girls were quickly clasped in each other’s arms 
—not so quickly that Nan did not see that Letitia was 
lovelier than ever—happier—more alive—more golden. 

It was about noon when Nan arrived. She was to stay 
not only for luncheon but for dinner, so as to see Roger, 
who never got home until five o’clock, and possibly later 
today, for he had been in Albany the night before and 
might find extra things waiting for him at the office when 
he returned to it. Both mothers were motoring from 
town for lunch—in Mrs. Rossiter’s car—so that the 
only time the friends could count on was now, imme¬ 
diately, this hour and a half. Letitia was awfully sorry, 
but she didn’t see how she could have arranged it 
differently. 

Nan smiled at that well-remembered phrase of her 
friend’s. As a matter of fact, she was not sorry the 
mothers were coming. She was curious to see Roger’s 
mother, who, for a mother with an only son, had behaved 
with the most astonishing cordiality about the marriage. 
A well-to-do widow, she had given Roger a good part of 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


135 


her income. Letty’s letters had referred to her as an 
angel; and Nan was always eager to see Mrs. Lewis at 
any time. Only she and Letty must waste no time, but 
set immediately about a process known to them as catch¬ 
ing up. This meant that they each asked questions, 
listening to the answers only so long as they appeared to 
contain new matter, and then ruthlessly interrupting with 
a new question. Thus: 

“Have you seen Bee since she—” 

“Oh, I meant to tell you—she never did.” 

“Isn’t that just like her? She always reminds me 
of—” 

“Yes, you wrote me—Roger simply loved it. You 
knew that Hubert—” 

“Yes, he cabled me. I thought it was you he—” 

“So did I—so did he, for that matter—only mamma 
once said of him—” 

“Oh, my dear, that heavenly thing about the scrubbing 
brush! Isn’t she priceless—your mother? And she 
really likes Roger?” 

“Crazy about him—thinks him too good for me.” 

And so they came to talk about the really important 
subject—Letty’s marriage—Roger’s wisdom and kindness 
and generosity. It amused and delighted Nan to hear 
her friend talking of men from the point of view of a 
person who owned one. Mrs. Lewis, who had long ago 
been obliged to part from an impossible husband, had 
always been a little more aloof from men, a little more 
contemptuous of them than of women; and Letitia, al¬ 
though her life was occupied with nothing else, had re¬ 
garded them as an exciting, possibly hostile and certainly 


136 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


alien tribe. Now it was wonderful to hear her identify 
herself with a man’s point of view— “We think—” 
“We feel—” 

Not for a long time did the old remote tone creep in. 
They were speaking of men in general, and Letitia said 
suddenly: 

“Tell me something, Nan—you have brothers—do you 
think the cleverest of them are a little silly about 
women?” 

Nan’s heart gave a leap. Letitia was looking intent. 

“Running after women, you mean?” 

“Oh, no!” Letty was quite shocked at the suggestion. 
“No, I mean believing everything they say. Roger re¬ 
peats the most fatuous things women say to him, as if 
they had any importance.” 

Letitia twisted her eyebrows in distress only half comic. 

Nan hesitated; she knew just the sort of thing Letitia 
must have in mind. 

“Well,” she said, “I think men often seem rather naive 
—particularly scientific men.” 

“Yes,” Letty agreed quickly, “and of course Roger 
has always been so busy. He has never gone about 
much; but still, he’ll say driving home, ‘Did you ever 
think, Letty, that I was a specially dominating sort of 
person? Mrs.—somebody or other whom he sat next 
to—‘said I was the kind of man who if I couldn’t domi¬ 
nate a woman might kill her.’ That old stuff, Nan, that 
we’ve all used and discarded. Or he’ll look in the glass 
and say, ‘Honestly, I can’t see that my eyes—’ It makes 
me feel ashamed, Nan.” 

Oh, dear, Nan thought, she could have made Letty 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


137 


understand, if she had had brothers, that these were a 
man’s moments of confidence, attaching and friendly, 
like the talk she and Letty were having at that moment. 
It wasn’t fair to judge a man by such moments any more 
than to judge girls by silly giggling confidences to one 
another. Yes, that was it—men let down the bars of 
their egotism to the woman they loved, and maintained 
a certain reserve with their men friends, while women, 
just the other way— 

“Oh, mercy, Nan, you’re so just!” Letitia broke out. 
“If you were in love with a man, you’d want him to 
appear well all the time.” 

There was a ring at the bell and the sound of a motor 
panting at the door. The two mothers had arrived, and 
the subject of man’s gullibility had to be dropped, as 
the two friends hurried downstairs. 

As they went Nan whispered, “Do the mothers like 
each other?” 

Letitia smiled, shaking her head. 

“No; but they think they do.” 

No two women of the same age and country could have 
been more utterly different than the two mothers. Mrs. 
Rossiter, who must have been rather pretty once, was 
still ruffled and jeweled like a young beauty; and her 
diction, though not exactly baby talk, had in it a lisp 
somewhat reminiscent of the nursery. There was a lot 
of gentle fussing about her wrap and gloves and lorgnette 
and purse—and a photograph of Roger she had been 
having framed for Letty, and a basket of fruit she had 
brought from town. The little hallway was quite filled 
with the effort of getting her settled. Mrs. Lewis, on the 


138 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


contrary, who not only had been but still was as beauti¬ 
ful as a cameo, was also as quiet as a statue, watching 
with a sort of icy wonder the long process of unwrapping 
Mrs. Rossiter. 

“Your dear little house/’ Mrs. Rossiter was saying, 
trying to blow the mesh veil from between her lips, while 
she undid the pin at the back of a frilled hat which would 
have looked equally well on a child of seven. “It is a 
dear little house, isn’t it, Miss Perkins? But you must 
let me call you Nan. We all call you Nan—even Roger. 
He’s so excited about your coming home. He said to 
Letitia only yesterady, T feel as if I had known Nan all 
my life.’ Didn’t he? You’ll let me go up, dear, won’t 
you? One does get a little bit grubby motoring, doesn’t 
one?” 

She was led upstairs by her daughter-in-law. 

Mrs. Lewis patted the hair behind her ear with a brisk 
gesture. 

“I don’t confess to any special grubbiness,” she said 
with her remorselessly exact enunciation. “Well, Nan, 
that’s what sons do to their mothers; almost consoles me 
for never having had a son. Letty thinks she’s perfec¬ 
tion—that’s marriage, I suppose. How do you think 
Letty seems?” 

“Wonderful—wonderfully happy, Mrs. Lewis.” 

“She ought to be. Roger is a very splendid person.” 

“You really like him?” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lewis as one facing a possible charge 
of sentimentality; “yes, I really do.” 

“No criticisms at all?” 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


139 


“Oh, come, Nan,” answered the older woman, “re¬ 
member who it is you’re talking to. When you find me 
without criticisms you’ll find me in my grave. I have 
endless criticism of him—of that cooing aged seraph who 
has just gone up to powder her elderly nose—even of my 
own daughter; but still, I do say that Roger is a fine man 
as men go—and that is saying a good deal.” 

It was saying more than Nan had ever expected to 
hear Mrs. Lewis say of her son-in-law, and she was 
content. 

Presently the nose powderer came down, still cooing, 
and they went in to luncheon. It was a pleasant meal. 
The little room was full of sunlight; the Swede, though 
a poor linguist, was a good waitress; the food was ex¬ 
cellent, and the talk, though not brilliant, for it was 
absorbed by Mrs. Rossiter, was kind and friendly; and 
Nan had been so many years away that she enjoyed just 
the sense of intimacy. They were talking about Roger— 
his health—how hard he worked. 

“I really think,” said his mother, shaking her head 
solemnly, “that you and he ought to go abroad. I think 
it’s your duty.” 

“I’m not sure Roger means to take a holiday at all, 
Mrs. Rossiter,” answered Letitia. “You see, he did take 
two weeks in the winter when we were married.” 

“If that may be called a holiday,” said Mrs. Lewis. 
No one noticed her, and Mrs. Rossiter pressed on: 

“Not take a holiday! Oh, Letty, he must! You 
must make him! He’ll break down. Remember, he’s 
only twenty-four. The strain at his age—You agree 


140 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


with me, don’t you, Mrs. Lewis? If you had a son of 
twenty-four, you would not want him to work steadily all 
the year round?” 

“If I had a son,” replied Mrs. Lewis, “I should be 
surprised if he ever found a job. The men of my family 
have always been out of a job.” 

There was a ring at the front door and the Swede went 
to answer it. 

“Now that Meta is out of the room, Lett,” said her 
mother, “might I suggest that you never allow her to 
answer the telephone? She always begins the conversa¬ 
tion by stoutly denying that anyone of your name lives 
here.” 

Mrs. Rossiter gave a little scream of laughter and a 
gesture of her hand with the fingers self-consciously 
crooked. 

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “how perfect that is! How 
exact!” 

Mrs. Lewis looked at her coldly, as much as to say she 
had not intended to be, and, as a matter of fact, had not 
been so humorous as all that. 

Then Meta returned to the room, and with the manner 
of beaming surprise which never left her—except on the 
rare occasions when she simply burst into tears—she 
announced that there was a policeman in the hall, come 
after Mr. Rossiter. At least, this was what she seemed 
to say; but there was enough doubt about it to keep the 
two mothers fairly calm, while Letitia ran out of the 
room to find out the truth 

“Do you suppose he’s met with some horrible acci¬ 
dent?” Mrs. Rossiter asked tremulously. 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


141 


“More likely to have parked his car somewhere he 
ought not to have,” answered Mrs. Lewis; but Letitia, 
knowing her well, saw that her secret thought was darker 
than her words. All three women remained silent after 
this, listening for some sound from the hall, until Letitia 
came back. She was holding herself very straight and 
her face was white. 

She came straight to the table and said in a low firm 
voice, “There is some mistake, of course; but this man 
has come to arrest Roger.” 

“To arrest him!” cried his mother. “For what?” 

“For murder,” answered Letitia simply. 

It is only men who break news with slow agony to 
women—women are more direct in dealing with each 
other. 

Mrs. Rossiter gave a little cry, and then all four were 
silent, and in the pause Meta came in from the pantry 
and, deceived, by the quietness, began to clear the side 
table. 

When they were in the sitting room, with the door shut, 
Letitia told them as much of the story as she had been 
able to get from the policeman. According to his ac¬ 
count, Roger had been not in Albany the night before but 
in Paterson—yes, he did sometimes go there for the 
company; but he never stayed there overnight. He had 
gone to a cheap dance hall—no, not at all like Roger, 
though he did love dancing—and afterward had gone to 
supper with a man and woman. She was a concert- 
hall singer, or something of the kind. There had been a 
row. The man had first gone away in a fury and then 
put his pride in his pocket and had come back—had 


142 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


drunk a cup of coffee of Rogers brewing—and had 
dropped dead. The woman had confessed— 

"It obviously isn’t true,” said Nan, and somehow her 
voice seemed to ring out too loudly. 

"Of course not,” answered three voices in varying 
tones; and none of them had the trumpet ring of com¬ 
plete conviction. Nan stared from one to the other, and 
saw that each was busy with a plan to save him. Well, 
that perhaps was love—to be more concerned with the 
dear one’s physical safety than with his moral integrity. 
When the first shock was over, when they had had time 
to think, they would see as clearly as she did that the 
whole thing was utterly impossible. 

But they were not thinking it over. They were talking 
about telephoning his office—whether it would be wise, 
whether the telephone wires could be tapped. Mrs. 
Rossiter was pleading that something should be done at 
once, and blocking every action that Letitia suggested. 
It was finally decided to telephone his office. The tele¬ 
phone was upstairs in her bedroom, and as Letitia opened 
the sitting-room door she revealed the policeman on a 
hard William-and-Mary chair in the hall. He had taken 
off his cap and showed a head of thinning fuzzy blond 
hair. He looked undressed, out of place, menacing. 
Mrs. Rossiter was upset by the sight and began to cry. 
Mrs. Lewis, who hated tears, cast a quick look at her 
and followed her daughter out of the room. 

Nan, left alone with Roger’s mother, felt the obligation 
of attempting comfort. She patted her shoulder. 

"Don’t cry, dear Mrs. Rossiter. It will turn out to be 
some stupid mistake.” 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


143 


“Oh, of course, of course, it’s a mistake!” 

Mrs. Rossiter wiped her eyes bravely and put her 
handkerchief away. “But he works so hard, Nan; up at 
seven and never back at home until six—drudgery—and 
he’s so young—so terribly young never to have any 
fun.” 

And, more touched by her word picture of facts than 
by the facts themselves, the tears rose again in her eyes. 

“Some people would think it quite a lot of fun to be 
married to Letitia,” said Nan gently. 

But Mrs. Rossiter only shook her head, repeating, “It’s 
all my fault—all my fault!” 

“How can it be your fault, Mrs. Rossiter?” Nan 
asked a little sharply. 

Mrs. Rossiter glanced over her shoulder to be sure 
no one had reentered the room while her nose was in her 
handkerchief. 

“He never was in love with Letitia—not really, you 
know—not romantically,” she said. “And when a young, 
ardent boy like Roger is tied for life——to an older woman 
—whom he doesn’t really love—what can you expect?” 

This view of the case was so unexpected to Nan that 
she could hardly receive it. 

“Letitia believes he loves her,” she said. 

“Does she?” answered Mrs. Rossiter in a tone that 
made the question a contradiction. “Or does she only 
try to believe it? Or it may be she doesn’t know what it 
is to have a man really in love with her. These modern 
girls—” 

“More men have been in love with Letitia than with 
any girl I ever knew,” said Nan firmly. “And unless 


144 DEVOTED WOMEN 

your son has definitely told you that he does not love 
her—” 

“Of course he hasn’t done that,” returned his mother, 
more shocked at the idea than she had been at the sug¬ 
gestion of murder. “He’s loyal, poor boy. It wasn’t 
necessary for him to tell me. I know my son, Nan, and 
I know love. There wasn’t a spark—not one—on his 
side at least. But she never let him alone; every day a 
telephone or a letter, or even a telegram. He was 
touched, I suppose, by her devotion. That isn’t love, 
though. I might have saved him. I ought to have 
spoken out and said, ‘Dear boy, you do not love this 
woman.’ I did hint at it several times, but he pretended 
to think I was in fun. Nan, they were like brother and 
sister—or, no, more like an old married couple—no 
romance. If they had been married twenty years, you 
would have said, ‘It’s nice to see them so companionable.’ 
Now it’s only natural that love should come to him in 
some wild and terrible form like this—an outlet—the 
poor child.” There were steps in the hall, and she added 
quickly, “But, of course, I would not have them know I 
thought the thing possible.” 

The footsteps belonged to Letitia. She entered, bring¬ 
ing word that Roger had not been at the office; he had 
been expected about noon from Albany—yes, they had 
said Albany, but it was only a clerk. They had been 
expecting to hear from him, but knew nothing of his 
whereabouts. Letty was too young to look aged by anx¬ 
iety, but she looked like a water color in process of being 
washed out. Not only her cheeks but her hair and eyes, 
and even her skin, seemed to have lost their color. Nan 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


145 


had never seen her friend suffering. She had seen her 
angry or jealous or wounded, but never like this. Her 
heart went out to the girl. She managed to get Mrs. 
Rossiter away to telephone to her son at his club, on the 
unlikely possibility that he might have stopped there. 
Left alone with Letty she said: 

“My dear, I know just how ugly and painful this is; 
but do remember that in a few hours it will all be ex¬ 
plained and you will be telling it as an amusing story.” 

“I know, of course,” said Letitia, as if she were listen¬ 
ing to a platitude; and then she added, “Did you happen 
to bring any money with you? You see, the banks are 
closed now.” 

Nan could hardly believe her ears. 

“Yes,” she said, “I have; but why should you need it 
just now?” 

“I shan’t need it, of course,” said Letitia hastily; 
“but in times like this you think of all sorts of possibili¬ 
ties. If we did have to leave the country at a second’s 
notice—” 

Her voice died way under Nan’s look of disapproval. 

“Would you go with him if he did?” said Nan, wonder¬ 
ing how a woman could love a man so much and under¬ 
stand him so little. 

“Go with him!” cried Letitia. “I’d hang with him if 
I could! Oh, Nan, you don’t know what it is to love a 
person as I love Roger! I believe I could be perfectly 
happy exiled, hunted, poor, in some impossible South Sea 
island, if I could only have him all to myself. While I 
was upstairs I put a few things in a bag; I brought it 
down and left it in the hall, and I thought that you could 


146 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


take it with you when you go. That couldn’t excite any 
suspicion, and then if I have to leave in a hurry—” 

Nan could not let her go on like this. 

“Letitia,” she said in a sharp tone, as if rousing a 
sleeper, “you simply can’t talk like that. You must be¬ 
lieve in your husband’s innocence. Your face alone 
would hang him.” 

“I do believe in it,” answered Letitia; “only I can’t 
help seeing some terrible coincidences. There is no one 
in the world knows more about poisons than Roger does. 
He is always talking about the Borgias and what they 
used. And after all, Nan, I was brought up to face facts. 
There is a streak of weakness in Roger where women 
are concerned—a certain vanity.” 

“There is in every man.” 

“And then, Nan, I love my mother-in-law; but I can’t 
help seeing she did not bring him up right. She spoiled 
him; not that she made him selfish or self-indulgent—no 
one could do that to Roger; but she did give him too 
much confidence in his own ability to arrange any situa¬ 
tion. He jumps into anything— Oh, can’t you see 
how he might easily be led on to do something like this?” 

“No,” said Nan; “no. I’m not his wife—I never saw 
him, but I feel sure he did not do this.” 

Perhaps her manner was more offensive than she meant 
it to be; but for some reason Letty’s rather alarming 
calm suddenly broke into anger. 

“That’s impertinent, Nan,” she said. “Why should 
you always think you understand better than anyone 
else? He’s my husband. If you had any delicacy of 
feeling, you’d admit that if anyone knew the truth about 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


147 


him, I do—not you, who never saw him. It’s easy 
enough for you to come preaching the beauty of perfect 
faith. Don’t you suppose I’d believe in him if I could?” 
And so on and on. It was as if she hated Nan for be¬ 
lieving in him when she didn’t. 

Nan let her talk for a few minutes, and then at the first 
pause she got up and walked to the door. “I think I’ll 
go and sit with your mother,” she said. 

“Don’t tell her what I’ve been saying—don’t tell her 
that I have doubt of Roger.” 

“You know I would not do that, Letty.” 

“I don’t know what you’d do in your eternal wish to 
know more about people than anyone else knows.” 

Nan left the room with a heavy heart. Did she want 
to be omniscient? Was it impertinent to be surer of a 
man’s innocence than his wife was? Well, if he were 
innocent, Letitia would never forgive her—that was 
clear. 

She found Mrs. Lewis alone in an upper room. She 
was standing looking out the window, her arms folded, 
her body tilted slightly backward, while she crooned 
sadly to herself. As Nan entered she shook her head 
slowly at her. 

“The poor child,” she said. 

“Roger or Letty?” 

“Oh, both; but, of course, I was thinking of my own.” 

“Mrs. Lewis, do you believe he’s guilty?” 

“No, my dear—nor innocent. I don’t believe anything. 
I simply don’t know. When you get to be my age, Nan, 
you will understand that anything is possible; the wicked 
do the most splendid things at times, and the virtuous do 


148 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


the most awful. I don’t know whether Roger did this 
or not. He may have. It may even have been the right 
thing to do, although poison—well, I’m surprised Roger 
descended to that.” 

With this point of view Nan had some sympathy, 
although she felt obliged to protest a little. 

“You said he was the finest man you had ever known.” 

“I thought so—I think so still—but what does one 
know about such people? An utterly different class, a 
different background. I’m as good a democrat as any¬ 
body, but there is something in tradition. Oh, I see you 
don’t know. Well, the father was a plumber. Yes, my 
dear, little as you might think it, that ruffled marquise 
downstairs is the widow of a plumber. How do we 
know what people like that will do or not do when their 
passions are roused? It nearly killed me to have Letitia 
marry him.” 

“I thought you liked the marriage, Mrs. Lewis.” 

“That’s where I blame myself, Nan. I let it get out 
of my control. I hesitated. I admired the man. He 
had plenty of money; and of course the mother was de¬ 
lighted to get such a wife for her son, and made it all too 
terribly easy. And then he was mad about Letty.” 

“Wasn’t she mad about him too?” 

Mrs. Lewis shook her head. 

“Not at first; but he was always there—always writing 
and coming. I don’t suppose I ever came into the flat in 
those days without finding a message that Letty was to 
call—whatever his number was—as soon as she came in. 
He’s a determined man and he meant to get her.” 

“She is tremendously in love with him now.” 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


149 


Mrs. Lewis sighed. 

“Ah, yes, now, poor child—of course. Don’t betray 
me, Nan. Don’t let those two downstairs know that I 
have a doubt. She’s a sweet creature—the plumber’s 
widow—though to me irritating; and she wouldn’t doubt 
anyone in the world, let alone her darling son; and, of 
course, Letitia does not think it possible that her husband 
can have killed a man, especially for the sake of another 
woman.” 

“Have you ever heard a suspicion that there was an¬ 
other woman?” Nan asked. 

“No; but then I shouldn’t be likely to. We three 
women are the last people in the world to hear it, even 
if it were notorious.” 

Nan was obliged to admit the truth of this; and pres¬ 
ently Mrs. Lewis, fearing that her absence might appear 
unfriendly, decided to go back to the sitting room. 

Nan said she was coming, too, but stood a minute star¬ 
ing at the carpet. What was it, she wondered, made her 
so passionately eager that Roger should be innocent? 
Was it love of her friend, or pride of opinion, or interest 
in abstract truth, or interest in a man she had never 
seen? She had a strange feeling of a bond between her 
and Roger. As she went slowly down the stairs, her eye 
fell again upon the police officer, shifting, patient, but un¬ 
comfortable on the William-and-Mary chair. A sudden 
inspiration came to her. She asked to see the warrant. 

Well, it was just as she thought—not for Roger at all, 
but for a man whose last name was Rogers, who lived in 
a house two away. The number wasn’t even right; but 
that was more the fault of the real-estate company than 


150 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


of the police department. She took the officer outside 
and showed him his mistake, and finally had the satis¬ 
faction of shutting the door forever on that blue-coated 
figure. 

She turned toward the sitting room. To break good 
news is not always so easy, either. She thought of those 
three doubters, each one trying to show the others how 
full her heart was of complete confidence. 

Nan opened the door, went in, shut it behind her and 
leaned on the knob. 

“Now, you three,” she said, “you’ve been wonderful in 
bad times; try to be equally calm in good.” They looked 
up at her, wondering what good news was possible, and 
she hurried on: “The policeman has gone. The war¬ 
rant was not for Roger at all.” 

There was a pause, hardly broken in any real sense by 
the sound of Mrs. Rossiter repeating that she had always 
known it could not be true—had always known it could 
not be Roger. 

“Still,” said Mrs. Lewis with an amused sidelong 
glance, “it is a comfort that now the police know it too.” 

But Nan’s eyes had never left her friend’s face. Letty 
did not say a word. She rose and stared straight at Nan, 
looking at her almost as if she were an enemy. Nan 
knew that Mrs. Rossiter would forget that she had ever 
doubted her son—had already forgotten and was croon¬ 
ing her faith and joy. Mrs. Lewis had nothing to forget. 
She had merely expressed an agnostic attitude; but 
Letitia had revealed to Nan the very depths of her esti¬ 
mate of her husband—and she had been wrong and Nan 
right. She would never forgive that. 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


151 


Except for this change in the relation between the two 
younger women, in five minutes it was as if the whole 
incident had never occurred. Mrs. Rossiter was again 
the devoted mother-in-law, Letitia the happy bride, and 
Mrs. Lewis was saying, “Which brings us back to the 
point I was making when the fatal ring came—it is a 
mistake to let Meta answer either the door or the tele¬ 
phone.” 

In a little while Mrs. Rossiter announced that she must 
be going, and Nan was not surprised when Mrs. Lewis, 
who had had a few minutes alone with her daughter, sug¬ 
gested that Nan should go back with them and spend the 
night with her. 

“But I promised Letty—” she began, and then 
glancing at her friend she saw that she was expected to 
accept. 

Letitia spoke civily, kindly, as if she were doing every¬ 
one a favor. 

“Oh, I let you off,” she said. “Mamma is all alone, 
and I know how you and she enjoy picking all the rest of 
us to pieces.” 

Nan hesitated rebelliously. It seemed hard that she 
was not to see Roger just because she had understood 
him too well. 

She said, “But I want so much to see Roger.” 

Mrs. Lewis glanced at her. It was not like a girl to 
be so obstinate. Of course, poor Letty wanted her hus¬ 
band to herself after a shock like this. 

“Roger will keep,” she said firmly. 

She went into the hall and picked up her scarf from the 
companion chair to that on which the policeman had sat. 


152 DEVOTED WOMEN 

As she did so her eye fell upon a bag standing as if ready 
for a journey. 

“Is that your bag, Nan?” she asked, trying to remem¬ 
ber if the plan had ever been that Nan was to spend the 
night. 

“No,” said Letitia in a quick sharp voice; “that’s 
something of mine.” 

And then, without the least warning, the front door 
opened and Roger himself walked in—walked in without 
any idea that he had been a murderer, arrested, extra¬ 
dited, defended and freed since he had last seen his own 
house. 

He was just as Nan knew he would be. She didn’t 
care anything about his mere beauty. It was that fine 
firm mouth of his—just like the photograph. How could 
anyone imagine that a man with a mouth like that— 

He greeted his wife, his mother, his mother-in-law 
casually, and came straight to Nan. 

“So this is Nan—at last,” he said, and he stooped and 
kissed her cheek. 

Well, Nan said to herself, she had a right to that; but 
she saw Letty’s brow contract; and Mrs. Lewis, who per¬ 
haps saw it, too, hurried her toward the car. Roger 
protested. 

“But you’re not taking Nan! I came home early 
especially to see her. I did not even go back to the 
office for fear of being detained.” But, of course, his 
lonely protest accomplished nothing, and as he opened 
the front door for the three departing women, he asked, 
“When am I to see you, Nan?” 

Nan looked up at him very sweetly and said “Never.” 


DEVOTED WOMEN 


153 


She said it lightly, but she knew it was the bitter truth. 
She knew Letitia. Letitia would never permit a second 
meeting. 

Just as she got into the car she heard him call, “Oh, 
isn’t this your bag?” and she heard Letty answer: 

“No, it’s mine. It represents one of Nan’s abandoned 
ideas.” 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


S TRANGE, unnatural conventions were growing 
up about divorce, Cora reflected. The world 
expected you to appear as completely indifferent to 
a man when once your decree was granted as it had 
assumed you to be uniquely devoted to him as long as 
the marriage tie held. Here she was, sitting at her ease in 
her little apartment; she had bitten her toast, poured out 
her coffee, opened her mail—a dinner invitation, a letter 
from her achitect about the plans for her new house, a 
bill for her brocade slippers, an announcement of a pic¬ 
ture exhibition, and— As she moved the last envelope 
from its position on the morning newspaper her eye fell 
for the first time on the account of Valentine Bing’s 
illness. 

“It was said at the Unitarian Hospital, where Mr. 
Bing was taken late last night, that his condition was 
serious.” 

A sketch—almost obituary—of him followed: “Val¬ 
entine Bing was born in 1880 at St. Albans, a small town 
on Lake Erie. He began life as a printer. At twenty- 
one he became editor of the St. Albans Courier. In 
1907 he came to New York.” She glanced along rapidly. 
“Great consolidation of newspaper syndicate features— 
large fortune—three times married—the last time to 
Miss Cora Enderby, of the prominent New York family, 
from whom he was divorced in Paris in October of this 
year.” Nothing was said about the two other wives; 

154 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


155 


that seemed natural enough to Cora. But it did not 
seem natural that this man, who for two years had made 
or marred every instant of her life, was ill—dying, per¬ 
haps; and that she like any other stranger should read 
of it casually in her morning paper. 

She did not often think kindly of Valentine—she tried 
not to think of him at all—but now her thoughts went 
back to their first romance. In those days—she was 
barely twenty—she had been in conflict with her family, 
who represented all that was conservative in old New 
York. She had wanted work, a career. She had gone 
to see Valentine in his office, armed with a letter of in¬ 
troduction. He was a tall red-haired man, long armed 
and large fisted, with intense blue eyes, clouded like 
lapis lazuli; he was either ugly or rather beautiful, 
according as you liked a sleek or rugged masculinity. 
For an instant she had had an impression—the only 
time she ever did have it—that he was a silent being. 

She had told her little story. “And as I really don’t 
know much about writing,” she ended, “I thought—” 

“You thought you’d like to do newspaper work,” he 
interrupted with a sort of shout. 

He explained to her how newspaper writing was the 
most difficult of all—the only kind that mattered. What 
was the object of writing anyhow? To tell something, 
wasn’t it? Well, in newspaper work— On and on he 
went, the torrent of his ideas sparkling and leaping like a 
mountain brook. She was aware that she stimulated 
him. She learned later that he was grateful for stimu¬ 
lation, particularly from women. 

Almost immediately afterward, it seemed to her, he 


156 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


was insisting that she should marry him. At first she 
refused, and when her own resistance had been broken 
down her family’s stood out all the more firmly. 

They regarded two divorces and a vulgar newspaper 
syndicate as insurmountable obstacles. But a family 
had very little chance against Bing, and he and Cora were 
married within a few months of their first meeting. 

On looking back at it she felt that she soon lost not 
his love but his interest. He would always, she thought, 
have retained a sincere affection for her if she had been 
content to remain the patient springboard from which 
he leaped off into space. But she wasn’t content with 
any such role. She wanted to be the stimulus—the ex¬ 
citement of his life. And so they had quarreled and 
quarreled and quarreled for two horrible years which 
had just ended in their divorce. 

And now he, so vital, so egotistical, so dominating, 
was dying; and she, the pale slim girl whose charm to 
him had been the joy of conquering her, was alive and 
well and happy. It would annoy Valentine to know that 
she was happy—fairly happy—without him. 

She wondered whether she should call up the hospital, 
or go there herself to inquire about him. Wasn’t it 
possible that he would send for her? After all, it was 
only the other day that she was his wife. And at that 
instant the telephone rang. 

She heard a suave voice saying, “Is that Mrs. Bing? 
Mrs. Enderby-Bing? This is Doctor Creighton, at the 
Unitarian.” 

Half and hour later she was at the hospital. She had 
expected to be hurried at once to Valentine’s bedside. 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


157 


Instead a little reception room was indicated. At the 
door a figure was standing, head raised, hands clasped 
behind the back. It was Thorpe, Valentine’s servant. 

“In here, madam,” he said, opened the door for her, 
and closed it, shutting her in. 

The sight of him destroyed the last remnant of Cora’s 
self-control. He seemed like a little bit of Valentine 
himself. Thorpe had been with them on their honey¬ 
moon; she could see him waiting at the gate under the 
turquoise dome of the Grand Central Station, with their 
bags about his feet, and their tickets in his hand—so 
cool and competent in contrast to their own excitement 
that first day. 

She hurried into the room. It is not to be expected 
that a hospital should waste sun and air on mere visitors, 
and yet the reception room, painted a cold gray and dimly 
lighted by a shaft, was depressing. Some logical in¬ 
terior decorator had hung one large Braun photograph 
on the wall. It was a copy of the Lesson in Anatomy. 

Cora sat down and covering her face with her hands 
began to cry. A kind voice said in her ear, “I’m 
afraid you’ve had bad news.” 

Looking up Cora saw that a middle-aged woman was 
sitting beside her, a woman with comfortably flowing 
lines and large soft brown eyes and hair beginning to 
turn gray. 

“I’m afraid my husband is dying,” answered Cora 
simply. She thought it better not to mention divorce to 
a person who seemed like the very genius of the family. 

“Why, you poor child,” said the other, “you don’t look 
old enough to have a husband.” 


158 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


“I’m twenty-four,” replied Cora. “It’s almost three 
years since I was married.” 

“Of course,” said the other. “It’s just because I’m 
getting old that everyone seems so young to me.” 

She smiled and Cora found herself smiling too. There 
was something comforting in the presence of the older 
woman; Cora felt assured that she knew her way about 
in all simple human crises like birth and illness and death. 

Suddenly as they talked Cora saw the face of her com¬ 
panion stiffen; Thorpe was ushering in another woman, 
sleek headed, with a skin like white satin, wrapped in a 
mink cloak. Evidently the newcomer was painfully 
known to Cora’s friend, though the mink-clad lady gave 
no sign. She sat down, holding the blank beauty of her 
face unruffled by the least expression; and as she did so 
Doctor Creighton entered. 

“Mrs. Bing,” he said. All three women rose. The 
doctor glanced at a paper held in the palm of his hand. 

“Mrs. Johnson-Bing, Mrs. Moore-Bing, Mrs. Enderby- 
Bing.” 

Even in her wild eagerness to know what the doctor 
had to tell them of Valentine’s condition Cora was aware 
of the excitement of at last seeing those two others. 
Phrases that Valentine had used about them came back 
to her: “A cold-hearted unfaithful Juno”—she in the 
mink coat. “She was so relentlessly domestic”—Cora 
glanced at her new friend. Yes, she was domestic—al¬ 
most motherly. Cora’s friendly feeling toward her re¬ 
mained intact; but toward Hermione—Mrs. Moore-Bing 
—who had so deceived and embittered Valentine, her 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 159 

hatred flamed as it had flamed when Valentine first told 
her the story. 

How could she stand there, so calm, drooping her thick 
white eyelids and moving her shoulders about in a way 
that made you aware that under the mink coat they were 
as white as blanc mange. “She must know,” Cora 
thought, “that I know everything there is to know about 
her. Valentine had no reserves about it. And Mar¬ 
garet, from whom she took him; and Thorpe, whose 
testimony in the divorce case—” Instinctively she took 
a step nearer to Margaret, as if wishing to form an 
alliance against Hermione. 

Meantime the doctor was speaking rapidly, apologeti¬ 
cally: “You must forgive me, ladies. I might have 
arranged this better, but time is short. You must help 
me. Mr. Bing’s condition is serious—very serious. He 
keeps demanding that his wife come and nurse him. 
He believes we are keeping her from him. His tempera¬ 
ture is going up, he is exciting himself more and more. 
We must give him what he wants, but—” The doctor 
paused and looked inquiringly from one to the other. 

Mrs. Johnson-Bing smiled her quiet maternal smile. 
“Poor Valentine,” she said; “he was always like that 
when he was ill.” 

There was a pause. 

“But you don’t help,” said the doctor. “You don’t tell 
me which one it is that he wants.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Moore-Bing in her cool drawl, “as 
I’m the only one who left him against his will I’m prob¬ 
ably the only one he wants back again.” 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


160 

Cora would not even glance in the direction of such a 
woman. She had been kept silent heretofore by the 
trembling of her chin, but now she managed to enunciate: 
“Mr. Bing and I were divorced only a few months ago. 
Until October, you see, I was his wife.” 

The logic of this, or perhaps his own individual prefer¬ 
ence for a slim elegant young woman, evidently in¬ 
fluenced the doctor. He nodded quickly. 

“If you’ll come with me, then—” he began, and 
turned toward the door, but there Thorpe was standing, 
and he did not move. 

“If you’d excuse me, sir,” he said, “am I right in think¬ 
ing it will be bad for Mr. Bing if we mistake his wish 
in this matter?” 

“Yes, I’d like to get it right,” said the doctor. 

“Then, sir, may I say it’s not Mrs. Enderby-Bing that 
he wants, sir?” 

“What makes you think that?” said Doctor Creighton. 

“I could hardly explain it, sir. Twenty years of being 
with Mr. Bing—” 

There was an awkward pause. The obvious thing to 
do was to ask Thorpe who it was Bing did want, and 
something in the poise of Thorpe’s head suggested that 
he was just waiting to set the whole matter straight, 
when hurried footsteps were heard in the hall, and a 
nurse entered—an eager panting young woman. She 
beckoned to Creighton and they spoke a few seconds 
apart. Then he turned back to the group with bright¬ 
ened face. 

“At last,” he said, “Mr. Bing has spoken the first 
name. It is Margaret.” 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


161 


Cora caught a glimpse of Thorpe quietly bowing to 
himself—as much as to say, “Just what I had expected.” 

Mrs. Johnson-Bing rose. 

“My name is Margaret,” she said, and left the room 
with the doctor. 

Hermione rose, too, hunching her cape into place. 
“Well,” she said without taking the least notice of 
Thorpe, who was opening the door for her, “that’s one 
chore you and I don’t have to do. He was bad enough 
healthy—sick he must be the limit.” 

Cora did not so much ignore Hermione as she con¬ 
veyed in her manner as she turned to Thorpe that every¬ 
one must know that whoever might be the object of 
Mrs. Moore-Bing’s conversation it could not be herself. 

“Tell me, Thorpe,” she said, “what do you think of 
Mr. Bing’s condition?” 

“Mr. Bing is ill, madam—very ill,” Thorpe answered 
immediately; “but not so ill as the doctors think.” 

“No?” said Cora in some surprise. 

“No, madam. Mr. Bing, if I might use the expression, 
yields himself up to illness; this assists him to recover.” 

He opened the door for her at this point, and she went 
out of it. 

She returned home not so emotionally upset but more 
depressed than before. There was a core of bitterness in 
her feeling that had not been there when she went to the 
hospital, and at first she found it difficult to discover the 
reason for this. Was it anxiety at Valentine’s illness? 
No, for he was a little better than she had feared. Was 
it the realization that those two former wives, who had 
always seemed to her like shadows, were, in fact, living 


162 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


beings like herself? No, for they had turned out to be 
more unattractive, more utterably unsuitable to Valen¬ 
tine than she had imagined. It was true that her taste, 
her sheltered selectiveness—a passion which many well- 
brought-up women mistake for morality—was outraged 
at being in the same room with Hermione, but there 
was a certain satisfaction in finding her to be worse even 
than Valentine’s highly colored descriptions of her. And 
as for Margaret, she felt no jealousy of her, even though 
she had been chosen. No one could be jealous of any 
woman so kind, so old and so badly dressed. 

It came to her gradually as she moved about her room, 
unable to look at her plans, unable to read, unable to do 
anything but encourage the toothache at her heart, which 
was like a memory of all her later relations with Valentine. 
The reason was Thorpe—Thorpe’s instant conviction 
that it was not she whom Valentine wanted. Why was 
he so sure? He had been right; Thorpe was always 
right. For twenty years he had made it his business to 
know what Valentine wanted. That was Thorpe’s idea 
of the function of a good servant. He had ialways 
quietly and consistently followed his line, while the wives 
had followed others. Margaret had been concerned with 
what was best for Valentine; Hermione had thought en¬ 
tirely of what was most agreeable to herself; Cora had 
cared only to preserve the romance of her love. 
Thorpe’s specialty was knowing what at the moment 
Valentine wished for, and then in getting it. Thorpe had 
survived all three. 

Cora could understand a sick man having a fancy 
to be nursed by Margaret, but Thorpe’s conviction that 


163 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 

she, Cora, could not be the wife called for had a deeper 
and more lasting significance. That was the thought that 
made her heart ache. 

She tried to take up her life where she had left it that 
morning, but everything had paled; in interest—even 
her new house. She had bought a little corner of land, 
within the city limits but near the river, surrounded by 
trees. She saw wonderful possibilities—a walled garden 
and -a river view within twenty minutes of the theaters. 
She recognized certain disadvantages—the proximity of 
a railroad track, and the fact that the neighborhood was 
still unkempt; she enjoyed the idea of being a pioneer. 
But now, though the plans were lying on the table, she 
did not open them. It was as if that hour in the hospital 
had married her again to Valentine, and there was no 
vividness left in the rest of life. 

For ten days the bulletins continued to be increasingly 
favorable, and then—a sign that convalescence had set 
in—they ceased entirely. 

Cora found the silence trying. With the great ques¬ 
tion of life or death answered there was so much else that 
she wanted to know—whether he had been permanently 
weakened by his illness; whether he would now be starting 
on one of his long-projected trips—to China or the South 
Seas. China had always fired his imagination. Twice 
during her short marriage they had had their trunks 
packed for China. Had he been softened, or frightened, 
or in any way changed by the great adventure of almost 
dying? 

There was one person who could tell her all these things, 
and that was Margaret. Without exactly formulating 


164 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


a plan Cora went to the hospital one day and inquired 
about him. The girl at the desk answered as if Valentine 
were already a personage of the hospital. 

“He’s getting along splendidly now. His wife’s with 
him.” 

“I wonder,” Cora heard herself saying, “whether Mrs. 
Bing would see me for a minute.” 

She retired, rather frightened at her temerity, to the 
reception room, where the Lesson in Anatomy still domi¬ 
nated the wall. “Margaret won’t mind,” she kept tell¬ 
ing herself. “She’s so kind, and, anyhow, she’s more 
like his mother than his wife.” It was on this maternal 
quality that Cora depended. 

There was a footstep in the hall. A statuesque figure 
molded into blue serge stood in the doorway—bare¬ 
headed with shiny bronze-colored hair elaborately looped 
and curled. It was Hermione. 

“You wanted to see me?” she asked in her drawling, 
reconstructed voice. She did not at once recognize Cora. 

“No,” said Cora, “I certainly did not want to see you. 
I thought it was Mrs. Johnson-Bing who was here.” 

“Margaret?” replied Hermione. She drooped her 
thick eyelids and smiled, as if the name itself were comic 
—she never broke her beautiful mask with a laugh. 

“No, that didn’t last long. He bounced Margaret as 
soon as he got over being delirious.” 

“And was it then that he sent for you?” asked Cora 
with an edge to her voice that a Damascus blade might 
have envied. 

“As a matter of fact he didn’t; it was Thorpe who sent 
for me,” said Hermione. “Thorpe had a wholesome 


165 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 

recollection that I used to keep Val in order. Nice little 
job, keeping Val in order. Ever tried it? No, I remem¬ 
ber Thorpe said that wasn’t your line.” 

Cora would have given a good deal to know just how 
Thorpe had characterized her line, but not even curiosity 
could make her address an unnecessary word to the 
coarse, cold woman before her. She was not jealous as 
she understood the word, but the disgust she felt for Her- 
mione included Valentine, too, and made her hate him for 
the moment with an intimate disturbing warmth. 

Hermione went on: “And, after all, as I said to Val 
yesterday, what does it matter to me whether he gets 
well or not? It takes too much vitality—making him 
mind. I’m through. I’m off for Palm Beach to-morrow. 
Thorpe’s taking him home.” 

“It’s amiable of you—to come and go as Thorpe 
orders.” 

Hermione moved her eloquent shoulders. “Oh, 
Thorpe and I understand each other.” 

“I knew Thorpe understood you,” said Cora insolently. 

But the woman was insensitive to anything but a 
bludgeon, for she answered, “I understand Thorpe too. 
All he objects to is wives. He’s like the—whatever it 
is, you know—that fishes in troubled waters. 

Cora merely moved past her and went away. It 
wasn’t until she was outside that she took in how pleasant 
had been the unconscious suggestion behind Hermione’s 
last words. Thorpe objected to wives. That was why 
he had not sent for her—she wasn’t a mother like Marga¬ 
ret; nor a vice, like Hermione. She was a wife. The 
story-teller, the magic builder of castles that is in every- 


166 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


one, suddenly made for Cora a splendid scene, in which 
she, reunited to Valentine, was dismissing Thorpe. 

Ten days later she took title to her new property 
and her architects filed the plans. Both events were 
announced in the newspapers. 

That very morning her telephone rang, and Thorpe’s 
voice—a voice so associated with all her emotional life 
that her nerves trembled even before her mind recognized 
it—was heard saying, “I’m telephoning for Mr. Bing, 
madam. Mr. Bing would be pleased if you could 
make it convenient to stop in and see him this 
afternoon.” 

“Tell Mr. Bing I’m sorry. I can’t,” answered Cora 
promptly. She was not a Hermione to come and go at 
Thorpe’s invitation. And then just to show that she was 
not spiteful she added, “I hope Mr. Bing is better.” 

“Yes, madam,” said Thorpe, “he’s better, but he 
hasn’t thoroughly regained his strength. He tests it 
every day.” 

Cora, hung up the receiver. Her thought was, “He 
can’t test it on me.” She was aware of a certain self- 
satisfaction in having been able so firmly to refuse, 
to set her will against Valentine’s. In old times she 
had been weak in yielding to every wish and opinion that 
he had expressed, until she had almost ceased to be a per¬ 
son. Of course in this case her ability to refuse had 
been strengthened by the incredible impertinence of 
allowing Thorpe to be the one to communicate Valen¬ 
tine’s invitation. A few minutes later the telephone rang 
again. This time she let the servant answer it, and when 
the woman came to her with interested eyes and said that 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 167 

Mr. Bing was on the Nvire Cora answered without a 
quaver, “Say I’m out.” 

But she knew Valentine well enough to know she was 
not going to get off so easily as that. He kept steadily 
calling until at last, chance, or perhaps Cora’s own wish, 
directed that he should catch her at the telephone. 

He must see her; it was about this new house of hers. 
Her heart beat so she could hardly breathe, while Valen¬ 
tine ran on as of old: 

“It’s folly, Cora, absolute folly! Why didn’t you 
consult me before you bought? You can’t live there— 
the railroad! on one side and a gas tank on the other. 
Besides, the railroad is going to enlarge its yards; in 
two years you’ll have switching engines in your drawing¬ 
room.” 

On and on, giving her no chance to answer him, dur¬ 
ing the ten minutes he kept her at the telephone. Yet 
when she hung up the receiver she found she had spoken 
one important word: she had promised to come and see 
him late the following afternoon. She had made him 
beg; she had refused to come that day, she had put it 
off; she had, in fact, teased him as much as was consistent 
with ultimately agreeing to do what he wanted. Before 
she did agree the impertinence of Thorpe was explained. 
Valentine had simply told him to get her on the tele¬ 
phone. Of course he had meant to speak to her himself. 
Thorpe was an idiot—overzealous. Cora had her own 
view about that, but she let it pass. Thorpe feared her, 
and Thorpe knew what was to be feared. He knew that 
if she once entered that house she might never be allowed 
to leave it. 


168 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


“No,” she said to herself the next day, as she tried 
various hats, and with hands that shook a little put on 
the dangling earrings that Valentine had given her in 
Madrid, “it will be Thorpe who will leave.” 

If there was fear in Thorpe’s heart he did not betray 
it when he opened the door and led her upstairs to the 
library. The room was empty. 

“Mr. Bing has been expecting you for sometime, 
madam,” he said. 

The slight reproach was agreeable to Cora. She had 
waited long enough for Valentine in old times, and some¬ 
times he had not turned up at all. 

The room was familiar to her. They had not been 
much in New York during their brief marriage, but she 
had spent part of the previous winter in this house. She 
had left her own imprint in the decorations. Valentine 
used his house as he might use a hotel—asking nothing 
but that it should be convenient for the purposes of his 
stay. Cora had been greeted on her first arrival by 
hideous tasseled gold cushions and imitation Japanese 
lamp shades; remnants, she believed, of Hermione’s taste. 
She had instantly banished them, and now she saw with 
pleasure that the shades of her own choosing were still 
on the lamps. Everything had remained as she had 
arranged it; he had seen that her way Was best. A wood 
fire was burning on the hearth—not the detestable gas 
logs which Hermione had left behind her. She found 
herself wondering for the first time what Hermione had 
found—-what Margaret had left. Then she remembered 
that Valentine had not bought the house in the simple 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


169 


days of Margaret’s reign; he had had a small apartment 
far uptown and at first Margaret had had no servant. 

A wish to know if Valentine had kept a paper cutter 
she had given him—lapis lazuli, the color of his eyes— 
made her get up and go to the desk. Yes, it was there, 
but something else was there, too: an unframed photo¬ 
graph propped against a paper weight—the photograph 
of a woman. 

She bent cautiously to look at it, as one bends to ex¬ 
amine the spot where the trembling of the grass suggests 
the presence of a venomous serpent. It was the picture 
of a slender woman with heavy dark hair and long slant¬ 
ing eyes, the cruelty of her high cheek bones softened by 
the sweet drooping curve of her mouth. A terrible and 
fascinating woman. Then as the light struck across 
the surface of the picture she saw it was a glossy print 
for reproduction. It might mean business—a feature 
for the syndicate—not love. 

She was sitting far away from the desk when, a minute 
or two later, Valentine entered—Valentine a little thinner 
than before, but no less vital. He greeted her as if they 
had parted yesterday, or rather he did not greet her at all. 
He simply began to talk to her as he came into the room. 
He had a roll of blue prints in his hand. 

“Now, my dear girl, these plans of yours—have you 
thought them over at all? . . . You practically made 
them? But don’t you see what you’ve done—sacrificed 
everything to a patio. A patio—only good for hot 
weather, when you’ll never be here anyhow. The whole 
comfort of the house arranged for the season you’ll be 


170 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


away. They are without exception the most ridiculous 
plans— Oh! Yes, I sent down for a copy of them at 
once. I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t—” 

“But, Valentine,” she interrupted—she knew by ex¬ 
perience that you were forced to interrupt Valentine if 
you wished to speak at all—“it is my house, you know.” 

“And that’s why I want it to be right for you,” he 
answered. “But we’ll get it right—never fear.” 

“It’s exactly what I want as it is,” she returned, and she 
heard with a mixture of disgust and fear that the old tone 
of false determintation was creeping into her voice. 

“It isn’t at all what you want,” he said. “You only 
imagine it is, Cora.” 

“Valentine, I’ve thought it all out with the greatest 
care.” 

“But it’s absurd—you won’t like it. Do listen to 
reason. Don’t be obstinate.” 

Obstinate—the old accusation. 

“That’s what you always say when I insist on doing 
anything my own way.” 

“But your way is wrong. Now just listen to me, my 
dear girl—” 

It was, to the identical phrases, the quarrel of their 
whole short turbulent married life. He had always made 
her feel that she was pig-headed and unreasonable not 
to yield at once to his superior knowledge of her own in¬ 
most wishes. The trouble was that the turmoil and the 
fighting slowly extinguished her own wishes—they weren’t 
changed, they were killed—so that after a little while she 
was left gallantly defending a corpse; she ceased to care 
what happened; whereas Valentine’s poignant interest 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


171 


grew with each word he uttered—and he uttered a great 
many—until he seemed to burn with an almost religious 
conviction that she must not do the thing in the way she 
wanted to do it. 

It always ended the same way: “Now, my dear girl, 
don’t be so obstinate.” Was she obstinate? she won¬ 
dered; and as she wondered Valentine rushed in like an 
army through a breach in the wall. He was doing it now. 

“All I ask,” he was saying, “is that you should look at 
the set of plans I had my man draw—he’s a real architect 
—not a bungalow wizard like that fellow you employed. 
Now you might at least do that—it isn’t much to ask that 
you should just look at them. Oh, well, you’ll see they 
call for another piece of land, but honestly, Cora, I 
cannot let you settle on that switching yard, that you 
picked out—” 

She could not refuse to look at his plans; in fact, she 
was not a little touched by the idea that he had taken 
such an infinity of trouble for her. 

And at this instant Thorpe entered. Valentine shouted 
at him to get that other roll of plans from his room. 

“Yes, sir,” said Thorpe, “directly; but the message 
has come that the steamer is docking and I’ve sent for 
a taxi, sir.” 

Valentine collected himself. “Oh, yes, the steamer,” 
he said, and then he glanced at Cora. “I don’t think 
I’ll go to the steamer, Thorpe.” 

Cora’s heart rose; she knew that look, that tone; he 
did not want to go. She looked at Thorpe; not a muscle 
of his face had changed, and yet she knew he was in 
opposition. 


172 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


“Yes, sir,” he said. “Would you have any objection 
if I went to the dock? I doubt if the princess will 
understand the American customs without assistance, 
sir.” 

There was a little pause. 

“The princess?” said Cora. 

Valentine waved toward the photograph on the desk. 
“She’s coming—Hungarian princess. Great stuff, if 
she’s as per invoice. I’m sending her to China for the 
syndicate. Hun to Hun, you know. Good idea, isn’t it? 
Thorpe told me about her. He lived with her uncle 
when he was ambassador in London; the uncle, you 
know, not Thorpe—though why not?” 

Valentine rose. The recital of the facts in the case of 
the princess had revived his interest in her. 

“I’ll just go and grasp her by the hand. We’ve got her 
transportation for the Coast this evening, and she may 
not relish starting at once, unless it’s put just right. I’ll 
show her it’s the best thing for her to do. Her last cable 
suggested she wished to linger in New York, but she 
would enjoy it more on her way back. I’ll explain that 
to her. It won’t take a minute. You’ll wait, won’t you? 
Stay and dine with me. I’m alone. Or no; I see by 
Thorpe’s face that I have someone to dinner.” 

“Indeed, you have, sir.” 

“Who is it? I don’t remember.” 

“Mrs. Johnson-Bing, sir.” 

“Oh, Margaret—good old Margaret—so it is.” 
Thorpe and Cora, a little embarrassed for him, averted 
their eyes, but Valentine was not embarrassed at all. 
“You have no idea how good she was to me when I was at 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


173 


the hospital. And I wasn’t very grateful—out of my 
head, you know. I thought I ought to tell her— You’ll 
wait, Cora; just give you time to look over my plans, and 
when I come back I’ll tell you about the land I bought 
for you. Well, I have an option on it—” 

She lost the end of his sentence, for Thorpe, who dur¬ 
ing the speech had been putting him into his overcoat 
and handing him his hat and gloves, finally succeeded in 
hurrying him out of the door, still talking. But Cora 
did not require the end of the sentence; no woman who 
has lived two years with a man does. She knew what 
he was going to say, but even more important, she knew 
what was in his mind—that her welfare was as important 
to him as it had ever been. The marriage ceremony, she 
had always known, did not unite people, but now she 
was discovering that a decree of divorce did not always 
separate them. She was as much married to Valentine 
as she had ever been—no more and no less. How 
astonishing! 

She sank into a chair. Perhaps the really astonishing 
fact was that they should ever have parted. They parted 
because they quarreled, but now she saw that their quar¬ 
reling was the expression of their love. Her relations 
with everyone in the world except Valentine were suave 
and untroubled. And she was sure there was no one 
else with whom Valentine enjoyed the struggle for mas¬ 
tery. The mere notion of attempting to master the doc¬ 
ile Margaret was comic, and as for Hermione, she was 
like a dish of blanc mange—you liked it and ate it or 
else you let it alone. No, it was useless to evade the 
truth that she, Cora, of all women was to him unique. 


174 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


Thorpe returned presently and brought the new plans. 
She nodded without looking at him and told him to leave 
them on the table. She had plenty of time. Valentine’s 
few minutes were always an hour. 

“If you don’t care to wait, madam, I’m sure Mr. Bing 
would be very glad to have you take them home with 
you,” said Thorpe. 

Cora did not trouble to repress a smile. “I shall wait, 
Thorpe,” she said, with the good humor that comes from 
perfect confidence. 

Thorpe bent very slightly from the waist, and left the 
room. 

At last she rose and began to unroll the plans. She 
became immediately absorbed in them; they were not 
only beautiful and ingenious but, better to her than any 
beauty, they showed how he had remembered her tastes, 
her needs. She had always loved growing plants, and he 
had arranged a glassed passageway with sun and heat to 
be a small conservatory for her; there was a place for 
her piano; a clever arrangement for hanging her dresses. 
He had remembered, or rather he had never forgotten. 
The idea came to her that this was not a house for her 
alone, but for her and him together. How simply that 
would explain his passionate interest in the prospect of 
her building. She began to read the plans as if they 
were a love letter. 

She was still bending over them when later—much 
later—the door opened and closed. She did not imme¬ 
diately look up. It was not her plan to betray that she 
had guessed what lay behind his actions. She waited 
with bent head for Valentine’s accustomed opening, and 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 175 

then hearing nothing she looked up, to find the newcomer 
was Margaret. 

In their last meeting the shadow of death had obliter¬ 
ated the pattern of convention, but now both women were 
aware of an awkard moment. Margaret smiled first. 

“I suppose, as no one sees us, we may shake hands,” 
she said. Cora looked at her predecessor. Even in the 
low becoming lights of Valentine’s big room she was 
frankly middle-aged, large waisted and dowdy, and yet 
glowingly human. Cora held out her hand.” 

“Is it so late?” she said. “Valentine mentioned that 
you were coming to dinner. He said he hadn’t thanked 
you for all you did for him when he was ill.” 

Mrs. Johnson-Bings smiled. “That isn’t what he 
wants,” she said. She undid her coat and began to re¬ 
move stout black gloves. She was in a high dark dress— 
very different from what Cora would have worn if she 
had decided to come back and dine with Valentine. 

“What does he want?” Cora asked. She was really 
curious to hear. 

“He’s heard I’m going into buisness—supplying food 
to invalids. He wants me to organize according to his 
ideas, and not according to mine.” Margaret smiled. 
“But poor Valentine doesn’t know anything about in¬ 
valids; just wants the fun of having everything done his 
way.” 

The words for some reason sounded like a knell in 
Cora’s ears. Was that all Valentine really cared about— 
getting his own way? There was a brief silence; far 
away in some other part of the house she was dimly aware 
of a clock striking and a telephone bell ringing. It must 


176 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


be dinnertime, she thought—Margaret’s hour. No, they 
couldn’t both stay to dinner. She found herself wonder¬ 
ing which of them Val would put at the head of the table. 
He would sit there himself, of course, with one on each 
side of him. “I suppose you’ll do it all just as he says,” 
she remarked mechanically. 

Margaret laughed; she had a pleasant laugh, almost a 
chuckle. “Indeed I shan’t!” she answered. “But I may 
let him think I’m going to. It saves such a lot of 
trouble, as I suppose you found out too.” 

No, Cora had not found that out. She felt shocked 
and admiring—as a little boy feels who sees another one 
smoking. How was it that Hermione, the faithless, and 
Margaret, the maternal, dared to treat Valentine more 
carelessly than she did? Perhaps they did not under¬ 
stand him as well as she did, with her more subtle 
reactions. 

Before she could answer, Thorpe was in the room. 
When she thought of that moment afterwards she appre¬ 
ciated the power of the man, for there was no trace of 
elation or excitement or even hurry about him. He ad¬ 
dressed Margaret: 

“Mr. Bing is very sorry, madam, he will not be able 
to get home to dinner tonight.” 

Cora’s mind working with the quickness of lightning 
waited for a second part of the message—something that 
would detain her and let Margaret depart in peace. But 
Thorpe having delivered himself of this one sentence 
turned to the desk and began collecting various objects— 
a fountain pen, a package of letters. 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 177 

“When will Mr. Bing be back?” Cora asked. 

“Mr. Bing is obliged to start for China this evening, 
madam,” said Thorpe, and his eye just wavered across 
hers. “I’m packing for him now—as well as I can at 
such short notice.” The reason, his tone suggested, was 
sufficient excuse for leaving the two ladies to see each 
other out. He left the room, his eyes still roving about 
in search of necessary objects. 

In this bitter moment Cora felt vaguely envious of 
Margaret, who, unmoved by the intelligence, was begin¬ 
ning to replace her heavy gloves. 

“To China,” she observed placidly. “Now I wonder 
what the reason for that is.” 

Cora snatched up the glossy photograph and thrust it 
between Margaret’s shapeless black fingers. “That’s the 
reason!” she said passionately. “He left me for just 
half an hour to meet her steamer—a princess—'great 
stuff if as per invoice.’ Well, evidently she is as 'per in¬ 
voice,’ if he’s going to China with her the first time they 
meet—he and his princess! ” 

Margaret took the photograph and studied it with 
irritating calm. 

“I don’t suppose there ever lived a human male who 
would not enjoy going to China with a princess,” she 
said, and she almost smiled at the thought of their 
departure. 

Tears were already running down Cora s cheeks. 
“What does it mean?” she said. “Are men incapable of 
permanent attachments?” 

“Oh, no,” replied Margaret. “Valentine’s attachments 


178 


THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 


are very permanent—only they’re not exclusive. He will 
always want me when he’s sick—and you when he wants 
to test his will power.” 

She stopped, for Thorpe had come into the room again. 
He had come for the photograph, which he now took 
gently out of Margaret’s unresisting hand. She hardly 
noticed his action, so intently was her mind working 
upon the question of Valentine’s health. 

“Thorpe,” she said, as if consulting a fellow expert, “do 
you think Mr. Bing is strong enough to make this 
journey?” 

For the first time Thorpe allowed himself a smile—a 
faint fleeting lighting of the eyes. 

“Oh, yes, madam,” he said. “I think now Mr. Bing is 
quite himself—quite normal. And then, madam, I shall 
be with him.” 


THE RED CARPET 


HE Torbys were giving a large dinner-party, and 



a scarlet carpet was rolled out from the glass and 


-M- iron of their grilled door to the curb of the Fifth 
Avenue gutter—a carpet as red as a cardinal’s robe, as the 
flags in the Bolshevist meeting which was being held simul¬ 
taneously two miles away in Madison Square and giving 
the police a good deal of trouble. 

It was customary to put on new clothes and treasured 
jewels for the Torby parties, for they gave very good par¬ 
ties; they were fashionable, and as they had been impor¬ 
tant, financially and socially, in New York for two genera¬ 
tions, and as most other New Yorkers had only lived 
there a year or two, the Torbys were generally assumed 
to be as aboriginal as the rocks of Manhattan Island. 

As a matter of fact, the first identified Torby, Ephraim 
by name, had strolled down to the great city from a Ver¬ 
mont farm just before the Civil War, and had made his 
fortune in questionable real-estate deals during the fol¬ 
lowing years of unrest. But when the present Torby, 
William, said, “My father used to say that when he held 
the property at the corner of Twenty-third Street ” it 
sounded as if the family had always been landed propri¬ 
etors; and Trevillian Torby, William’s son, just twenty- 
four and not deeply interested in ancestry, had actually 
come to believe, though he of course knew all the facts, 
that the Torbys were the oldest and best family in Amer¬ 
ica, and he was very scornful of newcomers from other 


179 


180 


THE RED CARPET 


States or countries who drifted into the metropolis to 
make their fortunes. 

Hewer, the Torby butler, stood in the hall, wearing the 
old-fashioned livery the Torbys affected. Hewer was not 
the kind of butler who opens the door; on the contrary, 
when the great double doors had been swung open by two 
footmen, Hewer was discovered standing back center, do¬ 
ing absolutely nothing, except, if a female guest should be 
so thoughtless as to direct her steps to the men’s dressing- 
room, or a male to the women’s, he set them right with 
a slight but autocratic gesture of the hand. 

Hewer was rather a young man to be so very great. 
He was the son of one of the gamekeepers on the Duke 
of Wessex’s place, and being ambitious and having a 
weak heart, he allowed it to be known through the proper 
channels, when the Torbys were staying with the Duke, 
that he would like to go to America; and the Torbys, 
who had had a great deal of trouble with butlers, snapped 
him up at once. 

At first Hewer had found social distinctions in Amer¬ 
ica somewhat confusing. He had been brought up in the 
strictest sect of inherited aristocracy, but some of his 
friends who had been in the United States explained 
to him that there everything was plutocratic—that noth¬ 
ing mattered but money. Hewer thought this not 
such a bad idea; but when he reached New York, he 
found it wasn’t true. Social distinctions were not en¬ 
tirely based on money—not nearly as much so as in Lon¬ 
don. He had a friend living second footman to the 
third or fourth richest family in America, and it appeared 
that they were asked nowhere. Of course his own Tor- 


THE RED CARPET 


181 


bys were all right—absolutely all right; they not only 
had visiting royalties to stay with them, but what did 
not always follow, they stayed with those same royalties 
when they went abroad. 

As the motor doors began to slam, Hewer placed one 
foot on the lower step of the Torbys’ beautiful Italian 
stairway, banked on each side with white lilies in honor 
of the party, and prepared to announce the first guest 
who issued from the dressing-room. If he did not know 
the name (though he almost always did, for he was 
intelligent, interested in his job, and had been doing the 
telephoning for the Torby parties for several years), he 
just drooped his ear toward the guest’s mouth for a 
dilatory second, and then having caught it, he moved 
straight away upstairs, like a hunting-dog that had 
picked up the scent. 

Many of the guests—more than a dozen—had arrived 
before one came in who spoke to Hewer by name. This 
was a small, erect old lady, with eyes as bright as her 
diamonds in their old-fashioned settings, and a smile as 
fine as her long old hands. 

“Ah, Hewer,” she said with a brisk nod, still here, 
are you? Do crowds like this always collect for the 
Torbys’ parties?” 

Hewer, standing on the lower step, seemed just twice 
as tall a§ the old lady as he answered: “Crowds, 
madam!” And then as she waved her hand toward the 
front door, he understood and added: “Oh, yes, madam, 
quite often a crowd collects. And how is Mr. Richard?” 

“Oh, of course he’s been wounded,” said the old lady, 
as if that had been the least of her expectations, “but 


182 


THE RED CARPET 


he’s well again now, and on his way home.” And then, 
noticing that other people were waiting,—be jeweled 
creatures whom she did not know,—she nodded again, 
to indicate that the conversation was over. Hewer 
mounted the stairs five steps ahead of her and announced, 
as if this time he were really saying something: 

“Mrs. John Grey.” 

But all the time he was at work announcing other 
guests—“Admiral and Mrs. Simpsom. . . . Lady 
Cecilia and Mr. Hume. . . . Mr. Lossing. . . . Miss 
Watkins”—his mind was grappling with the problem of 
what Mrs.“John Grey was doing dining with the Torbys. 

About a year before this, Hewer had left the Torbys 
and had been engaged by Mrs. Grey. He deeply re¬ 
spected Mrs. Grey, but her household had not been con¬ 
genial to him. In the first place there was an elderly 
maid in spectacles who managed everything, and had 
even attempted to manage Hewer. Then, Mrs. Grey was 
a widow with an only son, often away, and when he was 
away, Mrs. Grey dined by the library fire on a chop and 
rice pudding, and she sometimes omitted the chop; and 
though when Mr. Richard was at home, he was very gay 
and good-tempered, on the whole Hewer felt the position 
to be depressing; and when the Torbys humbly asked 
him to come back at a higher wage, he had consented. 

But he retained a strong admiration for Mrs. Grey. 
She was afraid of nothing, whereas he knew his present 
employers were afraid of many things—afraid of being 
laughed at, afraid of missing the turn of the social tide, 
afraid even of him, their butler, though they attempted 
to conceal this fear under a studied insolence of manner. 


THE RED CARPET 


183 


It was because this insolence was not of the particular 
brand that Hewer admired that he had left them. He 
had often noticed, as he waited on table, that Mrs. Torby 
was afraid of having opinions; she always found out what 
other people thought about art and politics, and only 
when strongly backed by majority opinion would she ex¬ 
press herself—with a good deal of arrogance. She never 
confessed ignorance of any subject under discussion—ex¬ 
cept possibly of a childhood friend. 

Mrs. Grey, on the other hand, ripped out her opinions 
with the utmost confidence, and could say, “No, my dear, 
I never heard of it,” when some new school of art or 
thought was under discussion, in a tone that made those 
who had been somewhat overpraising it wonder if they 
had not, after all, been making fools of themselves. Mr. 
Richard was the same way—never afraid of what people 
would think of him; perhaps it might have been better if 
he had been, judging from what Hewer himself had 
thought of some of Mr. Richard’s more youthful es¬ 
capades. 

Now, the last thing Mrs. Grey had said to Hewer when 
he left her service was: “What, Mr. Hewer, back to 
those vulgar people?” The words had been a shock to 
Hewer, for the Torbys were so fashionable, so clearly 
sought-after, that he had not supposed anyone would 
apply such a term as vulgar to them. But he did know 
exactly what Mrs. Grey meant, and he had never for¬ 
gotten the words, and so he wondered what Mrs. Grey 
was doing in the house of the people she had so con¬ 
temptuously described. She was not like the Torbys, 
who seemed to go to their friends’ houses chiefly for the 


184 


THE RED CARPET 


sake of making an amusing story afterward of how dull 
and badly done their parties had been. Mrs. Grey did 
not go to the houses of those she considered her social 
inferiors, and as she considered almost everyone her 
social inferiors, and as most of them regarded her as a 
funny little old lady who didn’t matter anyhow, she ate 
most of her meals quietly in her own house. 

As so often happens, while Hewer was pondering the 
problem, the explanation of it was walking into the house 
—walking in with her head in the air, and a sapphire- 
blue satin cloak wrapped tightly about her. Hewer 
recognized her at once, but he did not know her name. 
She was the young lady who used to come and sit with 
Mrs. Grey and look pale and tearless during the terrible 
weeks when Mr. Richard was fighting in the Argonne— 
and would have liked to cry, Hewer had thought, if only 
Mrs. Grey had not been so dreadfully heroic, remark¬ 
ing like the Roman emperor, that after all, she had never 
been under the illusion that her son was immortal. She 
was the young lady whose photograph had dropped out of 
one of Mr. Richard’s coats one day when he was brushing 
it. She was beautiful, and she came from far enough 
West to be aware of the existence of the letter r. She and 
Mrs. Grey used to have long amiable arguments as to 
whether or not well-bred people would recognize the letter 
r, except, of course, in such magnificent words as Richard. 
Hewer did not know this lady’s name until she told it 
to him at the foot of the stairs—“Miss Evington.” He 
repressed a start. It was the gossip belowstairs in the 
Torby household that Mr. Trevillian wanted to marry a 
Miss Evington, whom his family did not consider quite 


THE RED CARPET 


185 


up to the Torbys’ matrimonial standard. When Mrs. 
Torby had given Hewer the cards and the diagram of 
the table, and he had seen that Miss Evington’s place 
was next to Mr. Trevillian, he had taken this as a sign 
that the thing was settled. He never knew how much he 
had liked Mr. Richard until he felt a wave of contempt 
for this beautiful young creature who preferred 
Trevillian and his millions. 

Hewer announced “Miss Evington” with quite a sniff. 

When he went downstairs, another guest had arrived 
and was taking his dinner-card from the tray a footman 
was offering him. It was Mr. Barnsell. Barnsell was a 
sleek, brown, middle-aged man whose only interest in 
life was comfort; and as his means were limited and his 
tastes luxurious, the attainment of supreme comfort had 
become both an art and sport to him. 

“Ah, good evening, Hewer!” he said. 

“Good evening, sir,” said Hewer without the slightest 
change of expression. He hated and despised Barnsell, 
for the reason that he was one of those people who 
demand a far higher standard of comfort from other 
people’s houses and servants than he did from his own. 
When he stayed at the Torbys,—as he did for long 
periods,—he gave a great deal of trouble, and had been 
known to send a suit of clothes downstairs three times 
because it had not been properly pressed, although 
Hewer knew very well that at home his clothes were very 
sketchily taken care of by the housemaid. Hewer’s 
only revenge was to force upward the whole scale of Mr. 
Barnsell’s tips. Hewer himself did not care much about 
money and was very well paid by the Torbys, but in the 


186 


THE RED CARPET 


interests of pure justice, he received Mr. Barnsell’s 
crinkled bill with an air of cold surprise that made him 
double it next time. 

“Gad, Hewer,” Mr. Barnsell was saying, “there’s a 
pretty ugly situation outside there—a crowd around the 
door, and marching up Fifth Avenue. They nearly pulled 
my chauffeur off the box. If they’d laid a finger on me, 
I’d have let them have it, I can tell you.” 

“I hope they did not hurt the chauffeur, sir.” 

“Oh, no,” said Barnsell positively; but Hewer knew 
from his tone that he had not waited to see. 

Immediately after this, terrible things began to happen 
to the Tobys’ nice party—things that had never hap¬ 
pened to any of their parties before. The meeting in 
Madison Square having been broken up by methods 
which the participants described as being a little short of 
massacre, and which the police said were too velvet- 
gloved to be effective, had drifted away into smaller 
groups, all looking for trouble. Perhaps it was the color 
of the Torby’s carpet, or the size or ugliness of a house 
built in the worst taste of the ’80’s, or the delicious smell 
of terrapin which came floating out of the kitchen win¬ 
dows; but for whatever reason, a crowd had collected 
about the door and was mocking at and jostling the guests 
in such a threatening manner that the night watchman 
rushed in to tell a footman to telephone at once to the 
police, and poor fat little Mrs. McFarlane arrived with 
her tiara quite on one side and a conviction that she had 
just escaped being strung up to a lamp-post in the best 
style of the French Revolution. 

The McFarlanes, who took themselves seriously in 


THE RED CARPET 


187 


every position, made a dramatic entrance into the 
drawing-room. Mr. McFarlane held up his hand for 
silence and then said: 

“We are in grave danger.” 

He was a tall, solemn, hawk-nosed man, who had made 
a fortune after forty, and had been elected president cf 
a great bank after fifty—an office which he accepted 
as if it were a sort of financial priesthood. Mrs. Mc¬ 
Farlane, who went in for jeweled crowns and sweeping 
velvets, was suspected by her friends of a repressed 
wish to be queenly—nor indeed was her height and figure 
so different from that of the late Victoria. 

“Hewer, send down and have the outer doors closed,” 
said Mr. Torby. And Hewer, having announced the 
last guest, who was a good deal flustered from having had 
his high hat smashed over his nose—left the room to obey. 

“They are bloodthirsty, simply bloodthirsty,” con¬ 
tinued Mr. McFarlane. “One villainous-looking fellow 
shouted at my wife: ‘You don’t look as if you needed 
another square meal for a year; give us a chance.’ ” 

“Accurate observers, at least,” said Mrs. Grey in a 
twinkling aside to Miss Evington. “Come and sit down, 
my dear, and let us talk while these people regain their 
poise.” 

“Do you think we are in any danger from the mob, 
Mrs. Grey?” asked the girl quietly. 

“The mob inside, or the mob out?” 

Miss Evington laughed. “Oh,” she said. “Feeling 
like that about them, why did you come?” 

“I came,” answered Mrs. Grey, “because I knew these 
people are trying to dazzle you with all their hideous 


188 


THE RED CARPET 


possessions; and I wanted,” she added simply, “to give 
you some standard of comparison.” 

Miss Evington turned away to hide a smile, or perhaps 
it was a tear, at the old lady’s self-confidence. She had 
an impulse to explain that if she refused the Torby 
millions, it would not be on account of Mrs. Grey’s high 
breeding; and then she stopped to wonder whether, after 
all, it had not something to do with the situation—in¬ 
directly. 

Mr. Barnsell approached them, shaking his head. 
“Well,” he said, “now I hope Washington will see the 
consequence of coddling the lower classes.” Mr. Barn- 
sell’s railroad investments had declined. 

“This should be a great lesson to the Administration,” 
said Mr. Lossing—a slim, elderly man, who seemed to 
have decreased in bulk through constant shrinking from 
outrages against his notion of good taste and good man¬ 
ners. “As my dear old father used to say—” 

“It’s the French Revolution over again,” said Mrs. 
McFarlane, still panting a little. “It’s the hatred of the 
common man for the aristocrat.” 

“The aristocrat, my dear!” murmured Mrs. Grey to 
her young friend. “Her father-in-law was my father’s 
gardener, and she must know I know it.” 

At this moment a stone crashed through one of the 
long French windows of the drawing-room. Trevillian 
Torby rushed to Miss Evington’s side. “Don’t be 
alarmed,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Grey.” 

“Thank you—I’m not,” said Mrs. Grey, tossing her 
gray head slightly, as if to say it was a pretty state of 
affairs when Trevillian Torby could intervene in her fate. 


THE RED CARPET 


189 


“If you won’t think me rude, I must say the evening 
is turning out more amusing than I had expected.” 

Trevillian, fortunately, was not looking for malice from 
one so small and gray and feminine, and he went on 
hotly: “I wonder what this rabble thinks they could 
do with this country without us—without the leader¬ 
ship of people like ourselves.” 

“They’ll soon find out, it seems,” answered Mrs. Grey. 

“The trouble with this country,” continued Trevil¬ 
lian, “is the growing contempt for law and order. No 
one is brought up to respect the state—the Government. 
What would the poor do without the ruling class? Do 
you realize that the hospitals and charitable institutions 
of this country would have to close? And what would 
happen then, I should like to know?” 

“They would be run by the state, of course,” said 
Miss Evington, who knew her way about sociology. 

“The state!” cried Trevillian. “Do you mean gov¬ 
ernment ownership? Well, let me tell you that the state 
is about the most inefficient, the most corrupt—” 

“I thought we ought to respect it,” said Miss Evington. 

Mrs. Grey laughed out loud. “Ah, Mr. Torby,” she 
said, “women ought not to attempt argument, ought 
they?” 

Trevillian felt soothed by this remark. “I own,” he 
replied, “that I do not think a woman appears at her best 
in argument.” And he never understood why it was 
that he seemed to have made a very good joke. 

They now began to go in to dinner—the dining-room 
was safely situated across the back of the house. The 
table was magnificent. Gold vases of pink and white 


190 


THE RED CARPET 


flowers alternated down its length with gold bowls of 
yellow and orange fruit. Tall wineglasses of crystal 
engraved in gold stood like little groves at each plate. 
The Torbys’ engraved glass was famous. 

“But I thought,” Lady Cecilia was heard saying to 
her host, who was of course taking her in to dinner, “I 
thought there were no classes in the United States?” 

Mr. Torby was shocked that Lady Cecilia, who had 
had so many opportunities, like the present, for observ¬ 
ing, should make such a mistake. 

“Oh,” he said, “I should hardly say that. I yield to 
none in my belief in the principles of democracy—from 
the political point of view; but socially, my dear Lady 
Cecilia, every country in the world has a class—how 
shall I define it—” 

He succeeded in defining it so that it included himself 
and excluded most of the rest of the world. Aristocracy 
nowadays, he thought, consisted in having had for two or 
three generations the advantages of a large fortune with 
all the cultivation and refinement and responsibility that 
it brings. A college president, who was present, was 
equally sure that it was all a question of education. 
Mr. McFarlane, the head of a large bank, thought it 
meant the group of men in any country who control the 
financial destinies—and therefore all the destinies—of 
a country. Mrs. Grey did not find it worth while to 
define anything, but sat thinking: “It’s being ladies 
and gentlemen, if they only knew it.” 

Suddenly there was a tremendous sound of cracking 
and tearing—a crash as if the stout double outer doors 
had given way, a shouting, the noise of an ambulance 


THE RED CARPET 


191 


gong, or of a police-wagon. Some people sprang up from 
the table, but Mr. Torby urged them to remain seated. 

“Hewer,” he said, “go downstairs and see what is 
happening.” 

Hewer immediately left the room, and did not return 
for a long time. 

In the downstairs hall Hewer found the night watchman 
with a dislocated wrist, several policemen, a young man 
mopping his brow, whom he did not at first notice, and a 
great deal of broken glass. 

The whole trouble, it appeared, had arisen over the 
red carpet—the Bolshevist meeting not being able to 
understand why, if they were not allowed to display red 
flags in Madison Square, Mr. Torby should be allowed 
to display a carpet of exactly the same hue in Fifth 
Avenue. In the interests of pure logic, the participants 
in the late meeting decided to point out this inconsistency 
to the municipal authorities, by cutting the Torby’s car¬ 
pet into small pieces and carrying them away. A num¬ 
ber of returned sailors and soldiers, who felt perhaps that 
to fight for a poor cause was better than not fighting at all, 
had decided to defend the carpet. The complete harmony 
of everyone was proved by the fact that when driven 
away by the police-reserves, both parties were soon 
jointly engaged in upsetting all the ash-cans in a neigh¬ 
boring side-street. 

Hewer sent the night-watchman to the housekeeper 
to get his wrist bandaged, got rid of the police by giving 
them some of Mr. Torby’s second-best cigars and a great 
deal of irrelevant information which they said was 
necessary to the preservation of order, directed that the 


192 


THE RED CARPET 


broken glass should be swept up, and then turned his 
attention to the young man. 

“Why, Mr. Richard!” he exclaimed. 

“Look here, Hewer,” said Mr. Richard, “I know that 
Miss Evington is dining here—I saw her going in, as I 
happened to be passing.” He glanced quickly at the 
butler to see if there was any criticism of an officer in the 
United States Army hanging about doorways to watch 
young ladies go in and out. “Is everyone in there 
frightened to death over this shindy?” 

“Well, you know, sir,” said Hewer temperately, “they 
have been very nervous about this Bolshevist movement 
for a long time; and they do seem anxious—all except 
Mrs. Grey, sir.” 

“What!” cried the Captain. “Is my mother dining 
here?” And Hewer could see that this was the last 
straw—that his mother should have gone over to the 
enemy. Hewer was sorry, but felt it his duty to go 
back to the dining-room. “They are anxious, sir, for 
fear the mob may have overpowered the police, and I 
ought to go back and tell them that everything is quiet.” 

“No, Hewer,” said the Captain firmly. “Go back, 
but tell them just the opposite. Tell them that the police 
have been driven off, that the mob is in control, that a 
soviet committee has been formed, which will send a 
representative to question them and decide on the merits 
of each of their cases, and say that if a finger is laid on 
the people’s delegate, the house will be blown up with 
TNT.” 

Hewer could not help smiling at the plan, but he shook 


THE RED CARPET 193 

his head. ‘‘I’d like to oblige you, sir/’ he said, “but I’d 
lose my job.” 

“Oh, the cream’s off your job anyhow, Hewer,” said 
Mr. Richard decisively. “You don’t want to be a but¬ 
ler under the new order. I’ve just got a good job with a 
Western railroad. Come with me and run our dining- 
car service.” 

The Great War has far-reaching effects. It was the 
war that made Hewer yield to this insane suggestion— 
the sense of dissatisfaction with himself because a weak 
heart had kept him from fighting, and the sense of power 
in Grey which a year and a half of being obeyed had 
thrown into his tone. 

“But you can’t go upstairs like that, sir—they’d all 
know you.” 

“You do your part, and I’ll do mine,” said Richard. 

When Hewer entered the dining-room again, the 
tension had increased. Some of the guests had arisen 
from the table and were looking for weapons. All had 
decided to behave nobly. The six footmen, as if para¬ 
lyzed by the consciousness that they had identified 
themselves with the capitalistic class, were standing 
idly about the room, not attempting to go on with the 
serving of dinner. Mrs. McFarlane had almost 
fainted again, but finding that no one had time to bring 
her to, she was coming to by herself. Only Mrs. Grey 
was finishing her soup in a thorough but not inelegant 
manner. 

Hewer bent to whisper in Mr. Torby’s ear. 

“Good God!” said Mr. Torby; and an electric thrill 


194 


THE RED CARPET 


ran through the company, who did not know that the 
exclamation expressed anger rather than fear. 

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Mr. Torby, addressing the 
table. “Keep perfectly calm. Hewer tells me the sit¬ 
uation is this: the police have been temporarily driven 
off. These Bolshevist rascals are in control for a minute 
or two—nothing more, I am sure. I should advise 
our yielding for the moment to their demands.” 

“But what are their demands?” asked Mrs. McFar- 
lane nervously, with a vague recollection of a program 
about women which her respectable morning paper had 
not been able to print in full, but which she had looked 
up later in the chauffeur’s more liberal journal, while 
he was putting on the chains. 

Divining her fears, Mrs. Torby gracefully hastened 
to allay them. “They demand nothing more than that 
we receive a delegate from their committee, and answer 
his questions.” 

“Receive him,” said the Admiral with that terrible 
calm which seems to have replaced the old quarter-deck 
manner. “We’ll receive him a good deal more warmly 
than he’ll like.” 

Mr. Torby held up his hand. “No,” he said. “Our 
safety, the safety of these ladies, is dependent upon the 
safe-conduct back of this delegate. The mob, prob¬ 
ably through the culpable carelessness of the Adminis¬ 
tration—” 

“Not a word against the Administration, sir,” cried 
the Admiral, “—the Administration under whom this 
country has just won one of the most signal tri—” 

“I’m afraid, sir,” said Hewer most respectfully, 


THE RED CARPET 195 

“that the committee is not inclined to wait very much 
longer.” 

It was decided to admit the People’s delegate at once. 
After all, however detestable his philosophy, he would be 
only one man against twenty-four guests, six footmen and 
Hewer. But when Hewer opened the dining-room door 
and announced in his very best manner, “The Repre¬ 
sentative of the Soviet Committee,” everyone saw that 
confidence had been premature. 

The delegate was an alarming figure. He was in his 
shirt-sleeves, without collar and round his waist was tied 
a long strip of the Torby’s carpet; from this protruded 
the handle of an army revolver. The lower part of his 
face was hidden by a black silk handkerchief; and a 
soft hat, rather too large for him, was pulled down to 
his brows. It was a hat which Trevillian had passed 
on to Hewer some months before, but fortunately there 
is no way of identifying a soft felt hat. Below the brim 
a pair of piercing gray eyes ran over the company like 
the glint of steel. 

The delegate was tall, and he stood in the doorway with 
folded arms. Mrs. McFarlane, declaring that at last 
the aristocracy knew how to die, burst into tears; and 
Trevillian Torby, bending over Miss Evington, declared 
in a passionate undertone that he would give his life 
for hers. But Miss Evington, with her eye fixed on the 
delegate, drew back almost rudely from Trevillian’s pro¬ 
tecting droop and said quite loudly: “Nonsense, Trevil¬ 
lian! I don’t feel myself in any danger.” 

“I am here,” said the delegate in a deep, rough voice, 
“as a representative of the first soviet committee—a form 


196 


THE RED CARPET 


of government which, as you now doubtless understand, 
will soon take over this entire country—indeed, the 
world. How dare you, a little, idle, parasitic group, 
eat like this, drink like this—and,” he added, snatching 
a bottle of champagne from the nerveless hand of a foot¬ 
man and quickly returning it, “and such a rotten brand, 
too? By what right, I say, do you feast, while better 
people are starving? But we are not cruel or unreason¬ 
able, and anyone here who can show that he or his im¬ 
mediate family belong to the proletariat and has worked 
with his hands, will be spared.” 

A confused silence greeted this speech. The company 
did not really take in the meaning of his words, for the 
reason that any identification of themselves with the pro¬ 
letariat—what they would have called the lower classes 
—seemed to them simply fantastic. Though they were 
continually readjusting their social standing with each 
other, they no more doubted their general superiority 
to the rest of humanity than they doubted the fact of 
the skies being above the earth. 

Mr. Barnsell, who had had more practice than most of 
them in adapting himself to his surroundings, spoke 
first. Getting up, with his hands in his pockets, he said 
coolly: 

“Oh, come, my dear fellow! This is ridiculous. This 
is un-American—extremely un-American. There are no 
class-distinctions in this country. We all in a sense be¬ 
long to the proletariat.” 

“Speak for yourself,” said Mrs. Grey. 

Mrs. Torby bent over to her next-door neighbor and 


THE RED CARPET 


197 


whispered, “Exactly what do they mean by proletariat?” 
with the manner of one who, being about to be elected 
to a club, would like to know what the organization 
signified. 

“You will have to offer proof of your assertions,” 
said the delegate in a more threatening tone. “A leisure 
class is a criminal class, and its wealth will be confis¬ 
cated! for the common good. Are you or are you not 
members of a leisure class?” 

At this the company, which had so far shown a good 
deal of courage, in face of one of the most terrifying 
agencies in the world,—an angry mob,—began to show 
evidence of panic. A threat to human life, even their 
own, seemed to them less horrible than this danger to 
the existing order of society. The right of property— 
not their own property, but the divine right of property 
in general—seemed worth defending at great cost. A 
babel of voices arose, out of which Mr. McFarlane’s 
soared like a lark: 

“I did, I did,” he was saying. “I used to help my 
father pick the beets and the rose-bugs. My father was 
a gardener. This lady”—indicating Mrs. Grey—“knows 
that what I say is true. My father was her father’s 
gardener.” 

“Is this true?” asked the delegate. 

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Grey, “and a very coarse, unedu¬ 
cated man too, as I remember him.” 

“Thank you—oh, thank you,” said Mr. McFarlane 
warmly; and his wife, raising her tiara-ed head, added: 

“Yes, and as a girl I used to take in plain—” 


198 


THE RED CARPET 


“Hush, Maria!” said her husband. “It is unnecessary. 
A wife always takes the rank of her husband in any 
society.” 

Mrs. McFarlane caught the idea at once, and leaning 
back with folded hands, she looked about patronizingly 
on those whose position under the new order was less 
solidly founded than her own. 

The complete success of Mr. McFarlane pointed the 
way to others, whose training had made them quick to 
learn new methods of pleasing—when they wanted to 
please. In a few minutes astounding revelations had been 
made on all sides. Mr. Lossing, the haughty and ex¬ 
clusive Mr. Lossing, confessed, or rather he loudly and 
repeatedly asserted, that he had long been secretly 
married to his cook—than whom, he insisted, no one 
was a more persistent and skillful manual worker. 
Mr. Barnsell, who had always seemed to live remark¬ 
ably well on the proceeds of a somewhat tenuous law- 
practice, pleaded for publicity for the fact that his 
father had kept a tailor’s shop—and he offered to 
produce photographs in proof of his statement. 

“Did you ever work in this shop?” asked the 
delegate. 

“I’m afraid not,” answered Mr. Barnsell reluctantly. 
“My mother,—you know how petty women are about 
class distinctions,—she wanted me to rise in the 
world—” 

“Rise!” exclaimed the delegate haughtily. “You are 
untrue to your class, sir.” 

“Perhaps—a little,” murmured Mr. Barnsell 

meekly. 


THE RED CARPET 


199 


“But we will pass you,” said the delegate, for the 
sake of your father.” 

By a somewhat unexpected application of Bolshevist 
principles, the delegate exempted members of the mili¬ 
tary and naval services, and visiting foreigners, from 
any examination. He showed a tendency also to pass 
over Mrs. Grey, although she kept asserting that none of 
her ancestors had ever done anything useful. “Unless,” 
she added thoughtfully, “Lionel Grey, whom they sent 
to the Tower for a day or two in 1673 for killing his 
valet. He may have had to sweep out his room. And I 
have a son,” she added more loudly, “who is just as bad.” 

“You mean your son does not work?” said the dele¬ 
gate, as if he felt the statement so unlikely that he was 
ready to contradict it. 

“I shouldn’t call him usefully employed at this mo¬ 
ment,” replied the old lady. “Would you like me to de¬ 
scribe what he is doing?” 

“Be silent, madam,” said the delegate, and turned 
hastily away to the examination of the Torby family. 

Asked rather roughly what he had to say for himself, 
Mr. Torby rose. “I have to say,” he began, “that I 
agree with my friend Mr. Barnsell, that this whole move¬ 
ment is extremely un-American. This country is a de¬ 
mocracy—our forefathers died to make it so; and for you 
to attempt to introduce all these dangerous ideas of class 
antagonism is opposed to all the ideals of the founders of 
this nation. There are no class distinctions in America. 
I may rise today, and you tomorrow—or you might have, 
if you had not cast in your lot with these lawless rascals 
who all will end in jail. Take the example of Mr. Barn- 


200 


THE RED CARPET 


sell here—proud to own his father’s trade.” (Mr. Barn- 
sell tried to oblige with a proud look.) “And I too—my 
father was a farmer. He tilled the soil with his own 
hands. That, ladies and gentlemen, is America.” 

“Ah, that’s easy to say,” replied the delegate, strangely 
unimpressed by an oration that had drawn tears to Mr. 
Barnsell’s eyes. “It’s easy to say that your father was a 
farmer, but can you prove it? Only yesterday I saw an 
interview with you in our capitalistic press on the occa¬ 
sion of your being elected president of one of these aristo¬ 
cratic social clubs,—which the people will raze to the 
ground immediately,—and this interview stated on your 
own authority that yours was one of the oldest and idlest 
families in this country.” 

“The reporter misunderstood me,” said Mr. Torby 
with the firmness of a man whose public life has made 
him long familiar with the phrase. 

Trevillian Torby sprang to his feet. “Father,” he said 
pleadingly, “let me go upstairs and bring down 
Grandfather.” 

“Goodness,” exclaimed Mrs Grey, “don’t tell me that 
the original Ephraim is still alive!” 

“My father-in-law is very old,” murmured Mrs. Torby 
faintly. “He shuns society.” 

For the first time since the entrance of the People’s 
delegate, the interest of the company turned from him 
and rested on the door through which Trevillian had de¬ 
parted. The idea that the great Ephraim—the founder 
of the colossal Torby fortune, the ancestor who had be¬ 
come almost a myth—was not only alive but living some¬ 
where in the top of the palace which his money had built, 


THE RED CARPET 


201 


was an overwhelming surprise to everyone. Everyone 
began calculating what his age must be, and having 
reached the conclusion that he was well over eighty, they 
were prepared to see Trevillian lead, wheel, or even carry 
him into the room; but the reality was very different. 

Ephraim Torby strode in ahead of his grandson. He 
was tall, over six feet, and the long plum-colored 
dressing-gown he was wearing made him look taller. The 
whiskers, which he wore in accordance with the fashion 
of his youth, gave to his shaven upper lip an added ex¬ 
pression of shrewd humor. A slight smile wrinkled the 
upper part of his face, and his bright black eyes twinkled. 
From the moment he entered the room, the situation was 
in his hands. 

“Well,” he said in a leisurely tone, addressing the del¬ 
egate, “what’s all this about?” 

The delegate in a few words, made less fluent by the 
fact that the old man had put on a pair of gold-rimmed 
spectacles and was now studying the delegate in detail, 
explained the principles of the Bolshevist movement, and 
the relation of these principles to the present company. 

“Foolishness!” said the old man. “For the land’s 
sake, what are clever fellars like you doing wasting your 
time fighting these folks?” And he waved his hand to¬ 
ward the dinner-table. “Ain’t you got sense enough to 
see that you’re jest the same—jest the same? Both 
against justice and law and order—both discontented— 
Oh, yes, Bill, you are discontented, and Trevillian too. 
They don’t get any fun out of life—not out of spending 
the money I had such a heap of fun making. And you’ll 
find, young fellar,” he added to the delegate, “that 


202 


THE RED CARPET 


there’s only two kinds of folks worth fussing over in this 
world—them that enjoys life, and them that would jest 
as lief jump off the bridge tomorrow. You’re both dis¬ 
contented, and you’re both narrer: you can’t see any¬ 
body’s interest but your own, and you’re both as selfish as 
the dickens—want to run the world jest for the sake of 
your own folks. Why, you two ought to be able to get 
together. But the fellars who are going to beat you both 
-—and you’re going to be beaten—is the fellars with a 
cheap car and a couple of acres, or a three-room flat, who 
are having too good a time out of it to let you bust it up. 
And you’ll never get past them—never in your lifetime, 
young fellar.” 

“We’ve got a good way already,” said the delegate. 

“Oh, maybe, maybe,” answered the old man. “And I 
presume you’re having a good time out of trying—and if 
you want any advice about organization, you might drop 
in to see me some afternoon, when Bill is out. You can’t 
tell; I might even want to subscribe to your campaign- 
fund—” 

“Father,” said William Torby, displaying more feeling 
than at any time during the evening, “that would be be¬ 
ing untrue to your class.” 

“Why, Trevillian was just a-telling me, Bill, that you 
said there were no classes in America,” answered his 
father. 

In the slight pause that followed, Mrs. Grey rose, and 
approaching Ephraim, she said in her most gracious man¬ 
ner—and that was very gracious: 

“Do come over and sit down, Mr. Torby. I should 
like so much to talk to you.” 


THE RED CARPET 


203 


But the People’s delegate interfered. “No, madam,” 
he said fiercely. “As you have shown no connection 
whatsoever with the proletariat, I must trouble you to 
come with me.” 

Mrs. Grey nodded at the terrified company. “Good 
night,” she said. “Such a pleasant evening! Do ask 
me again sometime, dear Mrs. Torby.” And then she 
added to the delegate: “I insist on Miss Evington’s ac¬ 
companying me. She’s quite as bad in her own way as 
I am in mine.” 

“No,” shouted Trevillian. 

“Yes, we’ll take her along,” said the delegate; and the 
three left the room hastily, taking the precaution to lock 
the door behind them. 

When safely in the taxicab, which Hewer had waiting 
for them, Miss Evington said: “Oh, Dick, can you ever 
forgive me for having been a little bit dazzled by those 
people?” 

“Well, Richard,” said his mother, “I should think this 
would mean a jail-sentence for you when it comes out. 
But I shall always think it was well worth while, well 
worth while.” 

“They’ll never tell if we don’t,” said Richard 
confidently. 

“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Grey, settling back comfort¬ 
ably in her corner. “I want to say this—not that I don’t 
know that you are holding Evalina’s hand behind my 
back, and I should know it, even if I were as blind as a 
bat, which I’m thankful to say I am not—I want to say 
that I think I believe in democracy, after all. The only 
really interesting and agreeable man there this evening, 


204 


THE RED CARPET 


except yourself, my dear Richard, was that delightful old 
farmer. Evidently the thing that makes American so¬ 
ciety so dull is not the people they let in nowadays, as I 
had always imagined, but the people they keep out. 
Yes, Richard, you have converted me to democracy.” 

But Richard and Evalina were not paying as much at¬ 
tention to this philosophy as it undoubtedly deserved. 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


Fifth: To my executors hereinafter named, or to such 
of them as shall qualify, and the survivors of them, I give and 
bequeath the sum of one million dollars ($ 1 , 000 , 000 ) in trust 
to hold, invest and reinvest the same and to collect the income, 
issues and profits thereof and pay over the whole of said 
income, issues and profits, accruing from the date of my 
death, in semiannual payments, less proper charges and 
expenses, to my wife, Doris Helen Southgate, as long as 
she shall remain my widow; and upon the death or remarriage 
of my said wife, I direct that the principal of said trust 
shall be paid over to my sister, Antonia Southgate, or in the 
event of her death— 

I T was this fifth clause that Vincent Williams, the 
dead man’s lawyer, found himself considering as he 
drove uptown wth a copy of the will in his pocket. 
Was or was not a man justified in cutting his wife off in 
case of her remarriage? After all, why should a fellow 
work hard all his life to support his successor and per¬ 
haps his successor’s children? The absolute possession 
of a large fortune may be a definite danger to a young 
woman of twenty-five. Yes, there was much to be said 
in favor of such a provision; and yet, when he had 
said it all, Williams found himself feeling as he had felt 
when he drew the will—that it was an unwarranted in¬ 
sult, an ungracious gesture of possession from the grave. 
He himself couldn’t imagine making such a will; but then 
he had not married a girl thirty-five years his junior. 
205 


206 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


Southgate may have had a vision of some pale, sleek¬ 
headed professional dancer, or dark-skinned South Eu¬ 
ropean with a criminal record— 

Williams was shocked to find he was thinking that the 
widow would have a right even to such companions as 
these, if these were what she wanted. He had no clew 
as to what she did want, for he had never seen her, al¬ 
though he had been Southgate’s lawyer for many years. 
Southgate, since his marriage five years before, had spent 
most of his time at Pasadena, although he always kept 
the house on Riverside open. 

It was toward this house that Williams was now driv¬ 
ing. There was a touch of the mausoleum about it— 
just the kind of house that a man who had made his 
fortune in coffins ought to have owned. It was built of 
cold, smooth graystone, and the door was wider at the 
bottom than at the top, in the manner of an Egyptian 
tomb. You went down a few steps into the hall, and 
Williams aways half expected to hear a trapdoor clang 
behind him and find that, Rhadames in the last act 
of A'ida, he was walled up for good. 

Nichols, Southgate’s old manservant, opened the door 
for him and conducted him to the drawing-room, which 
ran across the front of the house on the second story, 
with three windows, somewhat contracted by stone deco¬ 
rations, which looked on the river. 

It was an ugly, pretentious room, done in the period 
of modern satinwood, striped silks and small oil paint¬ 
ings in immense gold frames. Over the mantelpiece 
hung a portrait of Southgate by Bonnat—a fine, blatant 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 207 

picture, against a red background, of a man in a frock 
coat with a square beard. 

The house was well constructed and the carpets were 
deep, so that complete silence reigned. Williams walked 
to the middle window and looked out. It was the end of 
February and a wild wind was blowing across the Hudson, 
but even a ruffled dark gray river was more agreeable to 
look at than the drawing-room. He stood staring out at 
an empty freighter making her way slowly upstream to 
her anchorage, until a rustling of new crape garments 
made him turn, as Miss Southgate entered. 

She was tall—her brother had been tall too; nearly six 
feet; her face was white as alabaster, and her hair, 
though she was nearly sixty, was still jet black. Her 
mourning made her seem more majestic than ever, though 
Williams would have said she could not possibly have been 
more majestic than she had been the last time he saw her. 

His first impression was that she was alone, but a 
second later he saw that she was followed by a tiny 
creature, who looked as much out of scale beside An¬ 
tonia as if the Creator had been experimenting in differ¬ 
ent sizes of human beings and had somehow got the two 
sets mixed up—a little blond-headed doll with eyes the 
color of Delft china. Miss Southgate held out a solid 
hand, white as a camellia. “I don’t think you know my 
sister-in-law,” she said in her deep voice “A very old 
friend of Alexander’s, my dear—Mr. Williams.” 

Williams smiled encouragingly in answer, assuming 
that anything so small must be timid; but little Mrs. 
Southgate betrayed no symptom of alarm. She bent her 


208 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


slender throat and sat down on the sofa beside Antonia, 
with her hands, palms up, in her lap. She did it with a 
certain crispness, like a good child doing what it has been 
taught is exactly the right thing to do. She sat per¬ 
fectly still; whereas Antonia kept up a slow, magnificent 
undulation of shoulders and hips, as Williams took the 
will out of his pocket. 

“You are familiar with the terms of the will?” he 
asked, scrupulously including both ladies in the question. 

“Yes,” said Antonia, “my brother discussed the will 
with me in great detail before he made it, and I told Doris 
what you had said to me yesterday after the funeral. I 
think she understands. You do understand, my dear, 
don’t you, that my brother left you the income of his 
estate during your life?” 

Mrs. Southgate nodded, without the least change of 
expression. 

“During her life or until her remarriage,” said 
Williams, giving the word full weight. 

“ I shall not remarry,” said Mrs. Southgate in a quick, 
sweet, whispering voice—the sort of voice which made 
everyone lean forward, although it was perfectly audible. 

Antonia looked down at her sister-in-law and smiled, 
and Williams recognized with surprise that she was 
obviously attached to the little creature. He was sur¬ 
prised, because he knew that Miss Southgate had dis¬ 
approved of the marriage; and even if the marriage 
had been less open to hostile criticism than it was, no 
one would expect a sister, who had for many years been 
at the head of her brother’s house and a partner in his 
business, to welcome the intrusion of a young blond- 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


209 


headed wife. It really spoke well for both women, he 
thought, that they had managed to get on. 

He began to go over the will, paragraph by paragraph. 
In the sixteenth clause it was stated that the jewels now 
in possession of Mrs. Southgate, in especial a string of 
pearls and pigeon’s-blood rubies, were not to be regarded 
as gifts, but as part of the estate. He glanced at the 
widow. 

“I suppose that was your understanding,” he said. 

“I never thought about it,” she answered. “If Alex¬ 
ander says so, of course he knew what he meant.” 

At this moment the door softly opened and Nichols 
appeared with a visiting card on a salver, which he pre¬ 
sented to Antonia. Miss Southgate began feeling for 
her lorgnette. 

“We can see no one,” she said reprovingly to Nichols; 
then as she found her glasses and read the card, she 
added, “I never heard of such a person. Is it for me?” 

“No, madam,” said Nichols; “the gentleman asked for 
Mrs. Southgate.” 

“Explain to him that we can see no one,” said Antonia; 
and then, as Nichols left the room, she decided as an 
afterthought to give the card to her sister-in-law— 
merely for information, however, for the door had al¬ 
ready shut behind Nichols. 

As the little widow read the card she looked up with 
large, startled eyes, which from having been light blue 
suddenly turned without any warning at all to a deep, 
shiny black, and she colored until not only her face and 
neck but even her tiny wrists were pink. It was really, 
Williams thought, very interesting to watch; all the more 


210 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


because Antonia, who was talking about a legacy to an 
old servant, was utterly unaware of what was going on 
at her elbow. Mrs. Southgate had made no muscular 
movement at all, except to turn her palms over, so that 
her two hands were now domed above the visiting card. 
She sat quite still, gazing into vacancy and obviously not 
hearing a single word that was said. 

But half an hour later, when Williams stood up to go, 
she came back to life, and said to him without the least 
preamble, “You did not tell me what would happen if I 
did remarry.’’ 

Antonia turned the full front of her majesty upon her 
sister-in-law, and said, “You would lose the name of 
Southgate.” 

“I am glad you asked that question,” said Williams. 
“You ought to understand exactly what your situation is. 
In the event of your remarriage, you would have an in¬ 
come from another small fund—amounting to about 
forty-five hundred dollars a year, I should think.” 

She nodded thoughtfully; and Antonia, laying her hand 
on her shoulder, said gently: “Now I have still a few 
family matters to discuss with Mr. Williams; but you 
need not wait, if you want to finish your letters, although 
we shall be very glad to have you with us if you wish to 
stay.” 

It was clear to Williams that she did not wish to stay. 
She held out her hand to him—thin and narrow, but as 
strong as steel—gave him a smile and left the room. She 
always had a little difficulty, like a child, with the handle 
of a door. 

Williams and Miss Southgate smiled at each other, and 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


211 


he expressed a common thought as he said, “If I met 
Mrs. Southgate unexpectedly in the woods, I shouldn’t 
need any photographs to make me believe in fairies.” 

“She’s a dear little thing,” said Antonia as she seated 
herself again, rather heavily. “Very intelligent in some 
ways, but in business matters—almost a case of arrested 
development. My brother never even gave her the 
trouble of signing a check.” 

“He just paid her bills?” 

“She had very few. She has never been extravagant. 
She seems to have no wishes at all. I often hope that she 
will learn to assert herself more as she grows older.” 

Williams doubted if Miss Southgate would enjoy the 
realization of this hope, but he only said, “An income of 
fifty thousand is apt to increase human assertiveness.” 

“I sincerely hope so,” said Miss Southgate. “It’s a 
great care, Mr. Williams, and no special pleasure to find 
yourself obliged to direct every action, almost every 
thought, of another person’s life. What I wanted to say 
to you was that I think you had better consult me about 
all the business details. You see how little grasp she 
has of them. My brother never discussed anything of 
the kind with her. He was more like a father than a hus¬ 
band—thirty-five years’ difference in age—” 

Miss Southgate shook her head. 

“And yet,” said Williams, “the marriage turned out 
well, wouldn’t you say?” 

Antonia’s fine arched black brows went up in doubt. 

“It hadn’t the disadvantages you ordinarily expect 
from such marriages,” she answered. “She did not run 
about flirting with young men or spending my brother’s 


212 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


money foolishly. On the other hand, she did not intro¬ 
duce any of that gayety and youth into his daily life, any 
of that humor and high spirits— She is a curious 
little person, good as gold, but not vital, not alive.” 

Williams went away wondering. Corpses don’t blush 
like that, he thought. The wind had died down as the 
sun set; and now, with a red sky over the Palisades, 
the Riverside was not a bad place for a walk. He strolled 
southward, trying to remember, now that he had seen 
Doris Helen Southgate in the flesh, all that he had heard 
about her in the days when she was only a name—the 
folly of an otherwise shrewd client. 

He thought he remembered that she was some rela¬ 
tion to the clergyman of the Southgates’ church—an 
orphan trying to support herself by one of those ex¬ 
tremely ill-paid occupations which are considered lady¬ 
like. He thought she had come to the Southgate house 
to read to Antonia during a temporary affliction of the 
eyes. Before he had seen her he had thought of her as a 
serpent, insinuating herself into the household and then 
coiling herself so firmly that she could never be driven 
out; but now it seemed to him more as if a kitten had 
strayed into that great mausoleum and had been shut up 
there for life. 

He remembered a frequent phrase of Southgate’s, 
which he had never noticed much at the time: a Yes, 
I read it with great interest—at least my wife read it 
to me.” He had been fond of being read aloud to, es¬ 
pecially at night, when he couldn’t sleep. Williams won¬ 
dered whether Doris Helen had spent six years reading 
aloud—above the rustling of the avenue of palms at 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


213 


Pasadena, above the rattle of the private car as they 
went back and forth and across the continent. Mercy, 
it was no wonder she wasn’t much alive. And Southgate 
had never given her the trouble of signing a check, hadn’t 
he? Well, that was one way to put it No, of course, he 
said to himself, he did not want to see the little widow 
break loose—to hear that she was gambling at Monte 
Carlo or being robbed of her jewels at some cafe on the 
Left Bank; but he would have been glad to see her acting 
on the emotion that had turned her eyes so black that 
afternoon. 

Although he went to the house several times again in 
the course of the next few days, he did not see Mrs. 
Southgate. She was always engaged with the corre¬ 
spondence which had resulted from her husband’s death. 

“She writes a very nice letter, if I give her a general 
idea of what ought to be said,” Antonia had explained to 
Williams. 

One afternoon about a month after Southgate’s death, 
as Williams was leaving his office in Nassau Street, a 
card was brought to him. He did not know the name, 
and he sent word that he was just going home. If the 
gentleman could give him some idea 

Word came back that the gentleman was an old friend 
of Mrs. Southgate. Then Williams knew that he was 
holding in his hand the mate of the card that Doris Helen 
had pressed down upon her lap so tenderly that after¬ 
noon. The name was Dominic Hale. 

Even Antonia could not have complained of lack of 
vitality in the young man who presently walked into 
Williams’ private office. There was something vigorous 


214 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


about the way he was built, the way he moved, the way 
his thick brown hair grew, like a close dark cap on his 
head. He spoke at once. 

“I wanted to see you, Mr. Williams, as a friend of 
Mrs. Southgate’s. You are a friend, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” said Williams, speaking as a man; and then 
added as a lawyer, “Though I must confess I have seen 
her only once in my life.” 

“My goodness!” said Hale, with a shake of his head, 
“I never knew of such a thing! I can’t find that anyone 
has seen her more than once or twice in the course of the 
last five years. Wasn’t she allowed friends?” 

“Perhaps she did not want any.” 

Hale gave what in a tiger would have been a growl, 
but which in a man was merely a sound expressing com¬ 
plete disagreement. 

“A girl of twenty-five—” he said; and added without 
pause, “Mr. Williams, I want to marry Mrs. Southgate.” 

The exclamation “Good!” which rose to Williams’ lips 
was suppressed in favor of “I see.” Then he went on, 
“And does she want to marry you?’ 

“She says not.” 

“But does not convince you of her sincerity?” 

“Well, she said not in just the same tone seven years 
ago, when we became engaged.” 

“Oh, you and she were engaged before her marriage?” 

“Yes, we called it that. We had no possible prospect 
of ever getting married. Then just before I went abroad 
to study—” 

“And may I ask what it was you went abroad to study, 
Mr. Hale?” 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 215 

The young man looked at him a moment in surprise 
before he answered, “Painting. I’m Dominic Hale.” 

Williams shook his head. 

“Ought I to know?” 

Hale laughed. 

“You perfectly well might,” he said. “Doris broke our 
engagement before I went. We did not part in a very 
friendly spirit.” 

“I see. She had already decided—” 

“Oh, no! This was months before she went to the 
Southgates. She thought it was wrong for us to be 
tangled up with each other so hopelessly. It made me 
furious. She was so firm and clear about— She has 
a will of iron, that girl.” 

This last statement interested Williams almost more 
than anything Hale had said, for he suddenly appreciated 
the fact that he himself had had the same impression of 
the widow. 

“Miss Southgate finds her almost too pliable and 
docile,” he said. 

“Then,” answered Hale, “Miss Southgate has never 
tried to make her do something she did not want to. 
Oh, she’s not petty—Doris! She’ll drift quietly along 
with the stream, until something which makes a difference 
to her comes along, and then—” 

He wagged his head, compressing his lips in thought. 

“I don’t see exactly how I can help you in the matter 
—if she thinks she does not want to marry you, and she 
has an iron will.” 

“I don’t want help; I want advice,” said Hale. “I 
think she cares about me, but how much? If she really 


216 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


loves me, losing the fortune makes no difference. But 
if she doesn’t—if she’s just fond of me as an old friend— 
can I urge her to give up a million for the fun of being 
poor with me?” 

“Does it occur to you,” asked Williams—“I don’t 
want to say anything painful, but we must face facts— 
that she might love you a great deal and yet hesitate 
to give up the income from a million?” 

“Of course it has occurred to me,” answered Hale, 
“and if I thought it was true I’d kidnap her.” 

“Well, of course, you can’t do that,” said the lawyer; 
but his tone seemed to admit it wouldn’t be a bad thing 
to do. 

He was surprised after his visitor had left to find 
how sincerely he hoped that Hale would succeed in 
marrying the little widow. He owned that he himself 
would not give up a million for any romance in the world; 
but then he was a middle-aged man who had lived his life, 
not a pretty young woman who had spent five years of 
her youth almost as an upper servant. 

She ought, he thought, to be unafraid of the adventure 
of poverty; though he was obliged to confess that there 
was an element of adventure, too, in spending a large 
income; an adventure which would appeal more strongly 
to most people. Only, he thought, there wouldn’t be 
much joy in riches if one remained forever under the 
iron rule of Antonia. 

Soon after this, that first day of spring arrived which 
always comes to deceive New Yorkers sometime in 
March; that day when the air is warm and the sky a pale 
even blue, and the north side of the street is dry and clear 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


217 


and the south side still runs in slush and rivulets. Then 
almost everyone does something foolish—from wearing 
thin clothes and letting the furnace go out to mistakes of 
a more devastating sort. 

Williams, who was prudent by nature, did nothing 
worse than, in returning from arguing a case in Jersey 
City, to take the ferry instead of the tube. As he stood 
watching the boat for which he was waiting bumping its 
way into its slip, his attention was attracted by two peo¬ 
ple seated on the upper deck, with their elbows hooked 
over the rail and their bent heads close together, evi¬ 
dently at that delightful stage of intimacy when it is 
possible to talk—or rather whisper—simultaneously with¬ 
out either one losing a single word of what the other is 
saying. They showed no disposition to get off, no realiza¬ 
tion even that the boat had reached the shore, though the 
process of winding up the dock and letting down the draw¬ 
bridges and opening the gates is not a quiet one. They 
were simply going to and fro on the river, for when 
the deck hand came to collect their fare it was obviously 
a repeated performance. 

Williams had recongized Hale first, but the next second 
he had seen that the diminutve figure in black could be 
no other than Doris Helen. He did not disturb them, 
but from the window of the upper cabin he watched them 
—rather wistfully. Now and then they seemed to be 
saying something of the most serious importance, and, 
looking at each other in the middle of a sentence, they 
would forget to complete it. At other times they were 
evidently extremely frivolous, speaking with a manner 
common to those a little drunk and those deeply in love, 


218 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


a manner as if only they themselves could appreciate how 
deliciously ridiculous they were. 

Williams was not much surprised the very next day 
to be called on the telephone by Miss Southgate, who 
wished to see him at once. She said she would come to 
his office, where they could talk without interruption. 

She came. Her handsome alabaster mask was never 
allowed to express emotion, but she undulated her vast 
shoulders more than usual. A young man by the name 
of Hale—a painter—was coming every day to the house, 
and that morning Doris had admitted that he wanted to 
marry her. 

“And my brother hardly a month in his grave!” said 
Miss Southgate, with all the concentrated bitterness of 
Hamlet’s first soliloquy. 

She was so deeply outraged by the idea that Williams 
did not dare point out to her that she would profit by the 
marriage. There was something noble about her utter in¬ 
difference to this aspect of it, but there was something 
bitter and egotistical in her anger against her sister-in- 
law for daring to suggest the control of her own destiny. 
Williams remembered having seen Antonia show the same 
ruthless, pitiless bitterness toward a servant who had 
left her voluntarily. She regarded it as an insult from 
an inferior. Yet in her emotion there was also the wish 
to protect her brother’s memory. 

“It will make my brother ridiculous—an old man’s 
widow,” she said. “It was bad enough when he married 
her, but he and I together managed to keep the marriage 
on a dignified plane. No one could have found anything 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


219 


to laugh at during his life; and now he is dead, after all 
his kindness and generosity to her, she shall not insult 
his memory.” 

“But has she any idea of doing it?” asked Williams. 
“There is a pretty heavy weight on the other side of the 
scale.” 

Miss Southgate clenched her hands. 

“I don’t know,” she said, as if that were extraordinary 
enough. “I can’t read her mind. She says not, and yet 
she sees him every day.” 

Williams shook his head. 

“She won’t do it,” he said, and fortunately Miss South- 
gate did not catch the note of regret in his voice. 

He promised to come and dine alone with the two 
women that evening. He found the little widow more 
alive than before, more prone to smile and talk, but no 
less docile in her attitude toward Antonia. There was 
nothing of the rebel about her, no hint that she was pre¬ 
paring to defy the lightning. And Williams admitted, as 
he saw the violence of Antonia’s determination that the 
marriage should not take place, that a great deal of 
courage would be required. As he walked away from 
the house that evening he said to himself that if he were 
Hale he would kidnap her and take his chances of 
happiness. 

A day or sol later, a jubilant though black-bordered 
note from Miss Southgate announced that the decision 
had been made. 

“Doris has promised me that she will not marry this 
man, or any other, without my consent. She is to see 


220 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


him this afternoon at four. I should like you to be 
with me then, in case he makes a scene at his final dis¬ 
missal.” 

Well, Williams said to himself, he was a lawyer; he 
had seen a good deal of life; he had always known that 
that was the way the thing would end. But how piti¬ 
ful and how stupid! He thought of the ferryboat ply¬ 
ing unnoticed from one bank of the Hudson to the other. 
Did Doris Helen suppose she would duplicate that after¬ 
noon for a million dollars? 

He went punctually at four, and was ushered into the 
back drawing-room. The terrible room across the front 
of the house was already occupied by the parting lovers, 
where presumably the portrait of Alexander Southgate 
was dominating their farewells. 

Antonia received him with a manner of calm triumph, 
unshadowed by the least doubt that her sister-in-law 
would keep her word. But after about an hour a silence 
fell upon her, and Williams became aware that she was 
listening with increasing eagerness for the sound of the 
opening of the front drawing-room door. At last she 
rose to her feet. 

“This is unbearable,” she said. 

“An hour isn’t so very long,” he returned, “for two 
people who love each other to take an eternal good-by.” 

“It’s over two hours,” said Antonia. “And she had 
nothing to say to him but no.” 

A suspicion suddenly came to Williams that perhaps 
the other room was empty, that perhaps Hale had been 
driven to the alternative of carrying her off. He sprang 
to his feet. 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


221 


“Just wait here,” he said to Antonia. 

The hallway between the two rooms was in shadow. 
As he stepped into it, the door of the front room opened 
and Doris and Hale came out of it together. They did 
not see Williams, for they both turned at once toward 
the staircase, Hale in order to descend it and Doris lean¬ 
ing on the balustrade, raising her shoulders and almost 
taking her feet off the ground. Their manner was not 
that of people who have parted forever. 

“There isn’t another woman in the world would make 
such a sacrifice for a fellow like me,” Hale said. Williams 
could not see the smile she gave him, but it must have 
been potent. He took her in his arms, wrenched him¬ 
self away, walked down about three steps, turned and 
walked up them again, kissed her a second time—a good 
satisfactory hug, and then exclaiming, “I can’t bear to 
go,” bounded down the stairs and was gone. The front 
door banged behind him, and Doris Helen lifted her 
hands from the balustrade. She hardly noticed Williams 
as he opened the door. 

Antonia was still standing. 

“Well, Doris,” she said as the younger woman entered, 
and the tone of her voice was deep and bell-like. 

Doris sat down on the edge of the sofa—she always sat 
on the edge of her chair so that her feet could touch the 
ground. Her hands, folded as usual in her lap, were per¬ 
fectly quiet, yet something in the way her eyes darted 
form point to point made Williams feel that she was 
nervous. 

“Well,” he said briskly, “what did you decide?” 

She looked at him wonderingly. 


222 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


“I promised Antonia I would not marry without her 
consent. I shall keep my word, of course.” 

Her sister-in-law held out a hand to her, and with the 
other covered her eyes. 

“Thank God!” she said. 

Williams looked at the widow. Obviously she was 
deceiving either Hale or Antonia. That was no rejected 
lover who had just left the house. He speculated how 
the drama was going to unfold. There was no special 
purpose in deceiving Antonia. If there was to be a mar¬ 
riage, she would necessarily know it. 

Perhaps Doris Helen was one of those people who 
couldn’t say disagreeable things, but could write them. 

Miss Southgate removed her hand from her eyes. 

“And now,” she said, “that nightmare is over, let us 
go back to Pasadena and begin our work editing my 
brother’s memoirs.” 

Williams was aware of a certain bitter satisfaction in 
the thought that such a life was about all the little crea¬ 
ture deserved, but the little creature was calmly shaking 
her head. 

“No,” she was saying gently; “no, I’m not going back 
to Pasadena, Antonia. I’m going to Spain.” 

Her sister-in-law stared at her. 

“To Spain? But I don’t want to go to Spain, Doris, 
and you can hardly go alone.” 

“I’m not going alone,” answered Doris. “Mr. Hale 
is going with me.” 

Thirty years of training at the bar barely saved 
Williams from laughing aloud; the solution was so simple 
and so complete. The recollection flashed through his 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


223 


mind of the daughter of a friend of his, who when dis¬ 
covered in the act of smoking a cigar explained that she 
had promised her mother never to smoke a cigarette. He 
took himself in hand. The thing was serious and must 
be stopped. Evidently the word Sacrifice” had applied 
not to the loss of an income of fifty thousand dollars but 
to the resignation of the less tangible asset—reputation. 
Miss Southgate was already rolling out a magnificent in¬ 
vective. Doris Helen did not attempt to interrupt her. 
She sat still, with her eyes raised with interested surprise 
to Antonia’s angry face. Only once she spoke. 

She said quietly, “No, not as my lover, Antonia—as my 
secretary.” 

“And what difference does it make—what you call it?” 

“Antonia!” Mrs. Southgate’s tone protested. “It 
makes a great deal of difference what it is.” 

Her sister-in-law felt the reproach. 

“I mean, no one will believe it, no one will care—the 
scandal will be the same.” 

Doris made gesture with her thin hands as if one 
couldn’t go changing all one’s plans for every shred of 
gossip that drifted across the horizon. 

“One only cares what one’s friends say,” she explained, 
“and I haven’t any friends—except you, Antonia.” 

“Are you utterly indifferent to the name of an honor 
able man who was your husband?” 

“While my husband lived I tried to do my duty to 
him,” said Doris firmly. “I gave my whole life to it, 
and my reward is that he tries to reach out of the grave 
and prevent my having the normal freedom that any 
woman of my age ought to have.” 


224 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


Williams had only to look into her set little face to see 
that it was hopeless to argue with her, but he had hopes 
of Hale. He had formed a favorable opinion of the 
young man and simply did not believe he was a party 
to any such plan. 

“I should like to have a talk with Hale,” he said. 

“He’s gone out of town,” answered Doris. “He won’t 
be back until a day or two before we sail.” 

Antonia gave a sound between a bleat and a whinny. 

“You’re sailing on the same steamer?” 

“Of course—with my secretary.” 

She left the room. 

In the course of the next few minutes Williams was 
surprised to discover the words included in the vocabu¬ 
lary of so majestic a woman as Antonia. There was 
nothing she did not call her sister-in-law, although she 
ended each sentence with an assertion that she wouldn’t 
really do it. 

“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Williams. “Most 
people are restrained by the opinion of their social group; 
but, as Mrs. Southgate says, she doesn’t seem to have 
any group.” 

“Do you forget there is such a thing as a moral sense?” 
asked Antonia. 

“If you had listened attentively,” he replied, “you 
would have gathered as I did that there is nothing con¬ 
trary to morals in this plan of your sister-in-law’s—a 
lack of convention, yes.” 

“We will not allow it,” said Antonia. 

It was Williams’ duty to point out that persuasion was 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


225 


the only method open to them. His sympathies were 
with the lovers, but he felt it his duty to mention to Miss 
Southgate his conviction that the best way to stop the 
whole thing was to send for Dominic Hale. 

“This is not Hale’s plan,” he said. “I am sure he 
would not stand for it. If you send for him and have a 
talk you will find that he believes they are going to be 
married before they sail.” 

But Miss Southgate was too angry to listen to him. 
She tossed the suggestion aside with the utmost contempt. 

“How can you be so innocent?” she exclaimed. “The 
whole plan is his. Doris would never have the imagina¬ 
tion to think of such a thing. She has simply fallen 
into the hands of a designing man. She has no will of 
her own. You are utterly mistaken.” 

Well, perhaps he was; but he wanted to find Hale and 
have a talk with him; but as he could find no trace of 
the young man, he was obliged to content himself with 
an interview with Doris. He wanted to point out to her 
that she was ruining Hale irretrievably. It was the sort 
of thing a man could never live down. It would be said 
that he preferred to live on the dead husband’s money 
rather than to make the widow his wife. He put it as 
badly as he could, but Doris was unshaken. She nodded 
her head. 

“Yes, I know,” she said. “No one will understand. 
He sacrifices his reputation too—not any more than I do, 
Mr. Williams, though perhaps not any less. We must 
learn to live without the world, but we can—we shall 
have each other.” 


226 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


Williams thumped his hand on his knee. 

“I can’t believe it of him,” he said. “Such a disgust¬ 
ing role! So unmanly!” 

Doris smiled at him sadly. 

“Does it seem unmanly to you?” she said meditatively. 
“It seems to me it wouldn’t be manly to say no to a 
woman who loves him and has been as unhappy as I have 
been.” 

Yes, Williams could see that point of view too. Hale 
might say to himself that a girl who had lived those 
years of self-abnegation had a right to his love and South¬ 
gate’s money, if she wanted them both; that it wasn’t 
his part to take a noble stand for which she must pay. 
There was a certain nobility in not caring what the world 
said of him. 

And yet— 

He tried one last argument. 

“Well, then for yourself; can’t you see that it’s con¬ 
temptible to cling so to a fortune? What’s poverty, 
after all? You’re young. Marry the young man.” 

She stared at him. 

“But, Mr. Williams,” she said, “that’s exactly what I 
promised Antonia I wouldn’t do.” 

“Break your promise.” 

She looked really shocked. 

“What a funny thing for you to say—a lawyer! ” She 
shook her head. “I never broke my word in all my life. 
Besides, Antonia says that Alexander particularly dis¬ 
liked the idea of my remarriage.” 

Williams thought this was too trifling. 

“You can hardly suppose,” he said stiffly, “that you 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


227 


will be fulfilling the wishes of your husband by going to 
Spain with a man to whom you are not married.” 

She raised her shoulders as if beset by inconsistencies. 

“What can I do?” 

“You can give up the whole thing.” 

“Give up Dominic? No! I gave him up once because 
I thought it was better for him. I don’t think I’d do it 
again, even for that—certainly not for anything else. 
I love him, Mr. Williams, and I’m of rather a persistent 
sort of nature.” 

Williams reported his failure to Antonia. He began 
to feel sorry for Antonia. Her age, her previous power 
and, above all, her mere bulk made it seem somehow 
humiliating that she could make no impression on this 
calm, steely chit of a girl. He was struck, too, by the 
depth and sincerity of her emotion. 

“Don’t care so much, my dear Miss Southgate,” he 
said. “You’ve done your best to protect your brother’s 
memory. Wash your hands of it all and go back to 
California. Forget there ever was such a person.” 

And then he saw what perhaps he had been stupid not 
to see before, that under all Miss Southgate’s anger and 
family pride was a more creditable feeling—a love of 
Doris Helen, an almost maternal desire to protect her. 
As soon as Williams understood this—and he did not 
understand for some weeks—he advised compromise. 

“Offer her half the income and let her marry the 
fellow.” 

Antonia’s eyes flashed. 

“Let myself be blackmailed?” she said. “You admit 
they are trying to blackmail me?” 


228 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


“I admit they are in the stronger position,” said 
Williams, as if in the experience of a lawyer it was 
pretty much the same thing. 

“I shall not yield—for her own sake,” answered 
Antonia. 

In spite of the bitter issue between them the two 
women continued to live in the same house, and to discuss 
with interest and sometimes with affection all those end¬ 
less daily details which two people who live in the same 
house must discuss. It was the preparations for the trip 
that finally drove Antonia to the wall: Doris’ pass¬ 
port, her letter of credit from Southgate’s bank, and the 
trunks all marked with the name of Southgate—“in red, 
with a bright-red band,” Antonia explained to Williams, 
“so that no one can fail to notice them.” 

The final item was a dozen black-bordered pocket 
handkerchiefs. Williams, coming in late one afternoon, 
at the time when the shops are making their last delivery, 
found Antonia sobbing on the sofa and the little widow 
erect and pale, with the small, flat, square box open 
between them. 

He looked questioningly at Doris, and she answered, 
pointing to the handkerchiefs, “It seems as if she did not 
want me to wear mourning. But I can hardly go into 
colors when Alexander has been dead such a short time.” 

Antonia sobbed out without raising her head, “Can 
she go careering about Europe in widow’s mourning 
with that dreadful young man in bright colours?” 

“Dominic’s clothes are not bright,” said Doris gently. 

“They’re not black like yours,” returned Antonia. 

The widow looked up at Williams. 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


229 


“I don’t think it’s necessary for Dominic to wear 
black for my husband,” she said, as one open to reason. 
“One puts one’s footman in black, but not one’s secre¬ 
tary.” 

At that terrible word “secretary” Antonia gave way. 

“I can’t let her do it!” she wailed. “In crape and he 
in colors—at hotels! Oh, Doris, it’s horrible—what 
you’re doing, but I must save you from utter ruin! I 
will make proper legal arrangements to give you half 
the income from the estate, and you can marry this— 
this person.” 

She covered her large statuesque face with her large 
white hands. Doris patted the heaving shoulder, but 
she did not leap at the offer. For an instant Williams 
thought she was going to bargain. She was, but not for 
money. 

“Antonia, it’s very kind of you,” she said; “but I 
don’t see how I could take your money—money which at 
least legally would have become yours—to do something 
that you hated.” 

“You can’t expect me to approve of your marriage.” 

“If you don’t, I won’t do it,” said Doris. “I’ll just 
go—the way I said.” 

And on this she obstinately took her stand. Nor 
would she be content with Antonia’s cry that she dis¬ 
approved less of marriage than of this other horrible im¬ 
moral plan. 

“There was nothing immoral in my plan,” answered 
Doris proudly, “and I cannot let you say so.” 

She insisted on being approved, and at length Antonia 
approved of her—or said she did. And so the papers 


230 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


were drawn up and signed, and the arrangements for the 
wedding went forward, and at last Hale returned. 

Williams had been waiting eagerly for this. He was 
more curious than he had ever been in his life. His whole 
estimate of his own judgment of men was at stake. Did 
Hale know, or didn’t he? Five minutes alone with the 
young artist would tell him, but those five minutes were 
hard to get; Doris Helen was always there. Even when 
Williams made an appointment with Hale at his office, 
the young widow was with him. 

They were married early one morning, and their vessel 
was to sail at noon. Then at last, while Doris was 
changing her clothes, Hale was left alone in the front 
drawing-room with Antonia and the lawyer. Antonia, 
who still clung to her belief that her sister-in-law was an 
innocent instrument in the hands of a wicked man, would 
not speak to Hale, but sat erect, with her eyes fixed on 
her brother’s portrait. It was Hale who opened the 
conversation. 

“Miss Southgate/’ he said, with his engaging energy, 
“I can understand you don’t like me much for taking 
Doris away, but I do hope you’ll let me tell you how 
nobly I think you have behaved.” 

Antonia stared at him as if in her emptied safe she had 
discovered a bread-and-butter letter from the burglar. 
Then without an articulated word she rose and swept 
out of the room. Hale sighed. 

“I do wish she didn’t hate me so,” he said. “Doris 
tells me she says she approves of our marriage, but she 
doesn’t behave as if she did.” 

“At least,” said Williams, “she made it possible.” 


THE WIDOW’S MIGHT 


231 


Hale took him up quickly. 

“Not a bit of it. It was settled quite irrespective of 
her—that day when you saw me kiss Doris in the hall. 
It was all arranged then; only, of course, we thought we 
were going to be hard up. I shall never forget that, Mr. 
Williams—that Doris was willing to give up that enor¬ 
mous income for me.” 

“Was she?” said Williams. And as Hale nodded to 
himself he went on, “Why did you go away like that for 
a month?” 

“Doris wanted me to,” he answered. “She thought it 
was only fair to Miss Southgate. I felt perfectly safe. 
I had her promise, and she thought she might bring Miss 
Southgate round to approving of the marriage. I never 
thought she’d succeed; but, you see, she did. She’s a 
very remarkable woman, is Doris.” 

“She is, indeed,” said Williams cordially. 

Presently she came downstairs—the very remarkable 
woman—hand in hand with Antonia, and she and Hale 
drove away to the steamer. 

Williams found himself holding Antonia’s large, heavy, 
white hand. 

“I think you’ve been wonderful, Miss Southgate,” he 
said. 

She wiped her eyes. 

“I did not want to make it impossible for her to come 
back,” she said, “when she finds that man out.” 

The lawyer did not answer, for it was his opinion that 
if there was to be any finding out it would be done by 
Hale. 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


UNT GEORGY HADLEY was rather unpopular 



with her own generation because she did not 


-L think the younger one so terrible. “I can’t see,” 
she insisted, “that they are so different from what we 
were.” For an unmarried lady of forty to admit that she 
had ever had anything in common with the young people 
of the present day shocked her contemporaries. 

Aunt Georgy was a pale, plain, brilliant-eyed woman, 
who liked to talk, to listen to other people talk, and to 
read. She simply hated to do anything else. As a 
girl she had always said that the dream of her life was 
to be bedridden; and so when, after she had ceased to be 
young, she had broken her hip so badly as to make 
walking difficult many people regarded it as a judgment 
from heaven. Georgy herself said it was a triumph of 
mind over matter; she was now freed from all active obli¬ 
gations, while it became the duty of her friends and re¬ 
lations to come and sit beside her sofa and tell her the 
news, of which, since she lived in a small town, there was 
always a great deal. 

Her two sisters, married and mothers both, differed 
with her most violently about the younger generation. 
Her sister Fanny, who had produced three robust, hand¬ 
some members of the gang under discussion, asked pas¬ 
sionately, “Did we carry flasks to parties?” 

“How silly it would have been if we had, when it was 
always there waiting for us,” answered Georgy. 


232 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


233 


Her sister Evelyn, who had produced one perfect 
flower—little Evie—demanded, “Did we motor thirty 
miles at midnight to dance in disreputable road houses?” 

“No,” said Georgina, “because in our day we did not 
have motors; but we did pretty well with the environ¬ 
ment at our disposal. I remember that Evelyn was once 
becalmed on the Sound all night in a catboat with a 
young man, and Fanny was caught just stepping off to 
a masked ball in the Garden, only—” 

“I was not,” said Fanny, as one who slams the door 
in the face of an unwelcome guest. 

“Imagine Georgy’s mind being just a sink for all 
those old scandals!” said Evelyn pleasantly, but without 
taking up the question of the truth or falsity of the facts 
stated. 

Although Georgy was the youngest of the three Hadley 
sisters she, being unmarried, had inherited the red-brick 
house in Maple Street. It had a small grass plot in front 
—at least, it would have been a grass plot if the roots 
of the two maple trees which stood in it had not long 
ago come through the soil. There was, however, a nice 
old-fashioned garden at the back of the house; and the 
sitting room looked out on this. Here Aunt Georgy’s 
sofa stood, beside the fire in winter and beside the win¬ 
dow in summer. The room was rather crowded with 
books and light blue satin furniture, and steel engravings 
of Raphael Madonnas and the Death of Saint Jerome; 
and over the mantelpiece hung a portrait by Sully of Aunt 
Georgy’s grandmother, looking, everyone said, exactly as 
little Evie looked today. 

It was to the circle round the blue satin sofa that 


234 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


people came, bearing news—from nieces and nephews 
fresh from some new atrocity, to the mayor of the town, 
worried over the gift of a too costly museum. Jefferson 
was the sort of town that bred news. In the first place, 
it was old—Washington had stopped there on his way to 
or from Philadelphia once—so it had magnificent old- 
fashioned ideals and traditions to be violated, as they 
constantly were. In the second place, it was near New 
York; most of the population commuted daily, thus 
keeping in close touch with all the more dangerous fea¬ 
tures of metropolitan life. And last, everyone had 
known everyone else since the cradle, and most of them 
were related to one another. 

There was never any dearth of news, and everyone 
came to recount, not to consult. Aunt Georgy did not 
like to be consulted. One presented life to her as a nar¬ 
rative, not as a problem. There was no use in asking 
her for advice, because she simply would not give it. 

“No,” she would say, holding up a thin, rather bony 
hand, “I can’t advise you. I lose all the wonderful surge 
and excitement of your story if I know I shall have to do 
something useful about it at the end. It’s like reading a 
book for review—quite destroys my pleasure, my sense of 
drama.” 

That was exactly what she conveyed to those who 
talked to her—a sense of the drama, not of her life but of 
their own. The smallest incident—the sort that most 
of one’s friends don’t even hear when it is told to them— 
became so significant, so amusing when recounted to Aunt 
Georgy that you went on and on—and told her things. 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


235 


Even her sisters, shocked as they constantly were by 
something they described as “Georgy’s disloyalty to the 
way we were all brought up/’ told her everything. Step 
by step, the progress, or the decadence, by which the 
customs of one generation change into the customs of the 
next one was fought out by the three ladies, nee Hadley, 
at the side of that blue satin sofa. 

It began with cigarettes for girls and the new dances 
for both sexes. At that remote epoch none of the nieces 
and nephews were old enough either to smoke or dance; 
so, although the line of the battle had been the same— 
Fanny and Evelyn anti and Georgy pro—the battle itself 
had not been so bitter and personal as it afterward 
became. 

The first time that Fanny’s life was permanently 
blighted was when Norma, her eldest child, was called out 
and publicly rebuked in dancing school for shimmying. 
She wept—Fanny of course, not Norma, who didn’t mind 
at all—and said that she could never hold up her head 
again. But she must have lifted it, for it was bowed 
every few months for many years subsequently. Aunt 
Georgy at once sent for her niece and insisted on having 
a private performance of the offensive dance, over which 
she laughed heartily. It looked to her, she said, so much 
like the old horse trying to shake off a horsefly. 

The next time that the social fabric in Jefferson tot¬ 
tered and Fanny’s head was again bowed was at the dis¬ 
covery that the younger set was not wearing corsets. 
Fanny tiptoed over and shut the sitting-room door before 
she breathed this bad news into her sister’s ear. 


236 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


“None of them,” she said. 

“But you wouldn’t want the boys to, would you?” 
answered Georgy. 

Fanny explained that she meant the girls didn’t. 

“Mercy!” exclaimed her sister. “We were all scolded 
because we did. Elderly gentlemen used to write em¬ 
barrassing articles about how we were sacrificing the 
health of the next generation to our vanity, and how the 
Venus de Milo was the ideal feminine figure; and now 
these girls are just as much scolded—” 

“The worst of it is,” said Fanny, rolling her eyes and 
not listening, “that they take them off and leave them in 
the dressing room. They say that at the Brownes’ the 
other evening there was a pile that high.” 

Still, in spite of her disapproval, Fanny’s head was not 
so permanently bowed this time, because every mother in 
Jefferson was in the same situation. But craps struck 
Fanny a shrewder blow, because her child, Norma, was 
a conspicuous offender here, whereas little Evie, her 
sister’s child, didn’t care for craps. She said it wasn’t 
amusing. 

In order to decide the point Aunt Georgy asked Norma 
to teach her the game, and they were thus engaged when 
Mr. Gordon, the hollow-cheeked young clergyman, came 
to pay his first parochial visit. He said he wasn’t at all 
shocked, and turned to Evie, who was sitting demurely 
behind the tea table eager to give him a cup of Aunt 
Georgy’s excellent tea. 

There was something a little mid-Victorian about Evie, 
and the only blot on Aunt Georgy’s perfect liberalism 
was that in her heart she preferred her to the more 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


237 


modern nieces. Evie parted her thick light-brown hair 
in the middle and had a little pointed chin, like a picture 
in an old annual or a flattered likeness of Queen Victoria 
as a girl. She was small and decidedly pretty, though not 
a beauty like her large, rollicking, black-haired cousin 
Norma. 

Norma’s love affairs—if they were love affairs, and 
whether they were or not was a topic often discussed 
about the blue satin sofa—were carried on with the ut¬ 
most candor. Suddenly one day it would become evident 
that Norma was dancing, golfing, motoring with a new 
young man. Everybody would report to Aunt Gregory 
the number of hours a day that he and Norma spent 
together, and Aunt Gregory would say to Norma, “Are 
you in love with him, Norma?” and Norma would answer 
“Yes” or “No” or “I’m trying to find out.” 

“There’s no mystery about this generation,” Fanny 
would say. 

“Why should there be?” Norma would say, and would 
stamp out again, and would be heard hailing the young 
man of the minute, “We’re considered minus on romance, 
Bill”; and ten of them would get into a car intended for 
four and drive away, looking like a basketful of puppies. 

But about little Evie’s love affairs there was some mys¬ 
tery. Aunt Georgy did not know that Evie had ever 
spoken to the mayor—a middle-aged banker of great 
wealth—and yet one day when he came to tell Miss Had¬ 
ley about the museum he told her instead about how 
Evie had refused to marry him, and how unhappy he 
was. The nice young clergyman, too, who preached so 
interestingly and pleased the parish in every detail, was 


238 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


thinking of getting himself transferred to a city in Cali¬ 
fornia because the sight of an attentive but unattainable 
Evie in the front pew every Sunday almost broke his 
heart. 

Aunt Georgy exonerated Evie from blame as far as the 
mayor was concerned, but she wasn’t so sure about the 
Reverend Mr. Gordon. 

“Evie,” she said, “did you try to enmesh that nice- 
looking man of God?” 

Evie shook her head. 

“I don’t get anywhere if I try, Aunt Georgy,” she an¬ 
swered. “It has to come of itself or not at all. If 
Norma sees a man she fancies she swims out after him 
like a Newfoundland dog. But I have to sit on the shore 
until the tide washes something up at my feet. I don’t 
always like what it washes up either.” 

The simile amused Aunt Georgy, but the more she 
reflected the more she doubted its accuracy. Those 
tides that washed things up—Evie had some mysterious 
control of them, whether she knew it or not. Evie’s 
method and Norma’s differed enormously in technic, but 
wasn’t the elemental aggression about the same? 

Life in Jefferson was never more interesting to Aunt 
Georgy than when psychoanalysis swept over them. Of 
course, they had all known about it, and read Freud, or 
articles about Freud; but the whole subject was revived 
and made personal by the arrival of Lisburn. Lisburn 
was not a doctor of medicine but of philosophy. He was 
an assistant professor of psychology in a New York 
college. He had written his dissertation on The Un- 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


239 


conscious as Portrayed in Poetic Images. With an 
astonishing erudition he brought all poetry from Homer 
to Edna St. Vincent Millay into line with the new psychol¬ 
ogy. Besides this, he was an exceedingly handsome 
young man—tall, dark, decided, and a trifle offhand and 
contemptuous in his manner. What girl could ask more? 
Norma did not ask a bit more. The moment she saw him 
she—in Evie’s language—swam out after him. She met 
him at dinner one evening, and the next day her conversa¬ 
tion was all about dreams and fixations and inhibitions. 
Mothers began to assemble rapidly about the blue satin 
sofa. Craps had been vulgar, the shimmy immoral, but 
this was the worst of all. 

“Georgy,” said Fanny solemnly, “they go and sit on 
that young man’s piazza, and they talk about things—■ 
things which you and I did not know existed, and if we 
did know they existed we did not know words for them; 
and if we did know words for them we did not take the 
slightest interest in them.” 

“Then there can’t be any harm in them,” said Georgy, 
“because I’m sure when we were girls we took an inter¬ 
est in everything there was any harm in. But it sounds 
to me just like a new way of holding hands—like palmis¬ 
try in our day. You remember when you took up 
palmistry, Evelyn. It made me so jealous to see you 
holding my young men’s hands! ” 

“It’s not at all the same thing,” answered Evelyn. 
“There was nothing in palmistry that wasn’t perfectly 
nice.” 

“Oh, yes, there was,” said Georgy. “There was that 


240 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


line, you know, round the base of the two middle fingers. 
We all felt a little shocked if we had it and a little dis¬ 
appointed if we hadn’t.” 

But her sisters were too much worried to be amused. 
Their children, they said, were talking about things 
that could not be named. Fanny did name them, how¬ 
ever, and was grimly glad to see that even Georgy, the 
liberal, reeled under the blow. 

She recovered enough to say, “Well, after all, is it so 
different? We called people Puritans instead of saying 
that they had inhibitions. We didn’t say a boy had a 
fixation on the mother, but we called him mother’s little 
carpet knight. And as for dreams, Fanny, when a young 
man told me he had a dream about me I did not need a 
doctor of philosophy to tell me what that meant.” 

Even Fanny was obliged to confess that her younger 
son Robert had been cured of his incipient stammer after 
a few interviews with Lisburn. And the young Carters, 
who, after three months of marriage, were confiding to 
everyone their longing for divorce, had been reconciled. 
There was a dream in this—about a large white gardenia 
—and there was an incident connected with it—a girl 
in a florist’s shop— 

About this time the mayor, still worrying over the up¬ 
keep of the museum, wanted some sort of entertainment 
given in order to raise money. It was suggested that a 
lecture on psychoanalysis by Lisburn would be popular. 
Norma was delegated to go and ask him—make him, was 
the way the committee put it. Needless to say, she re¬ 
turned triumphant. 

Aunt Georgy was among the first to arrive at the town 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


241 


hall on the evening the lecture took place. She had 
become curious about the young man and wanted a front 
seat. She limped up the aisle, leaning on her grand¬ 
father’s heavy ivory-headed cane, with little Evie beside 
her. Norma was busy taking—one might almost say 
snatching—tickets at the door. It is a peculiar feature 
of modern life that so much time is spent first in getting 
lecturers to consent to lecture and then in drumming up 
an audience to hear them. But this time the audience 
was not difficult to get. They came in crowds. 

The mayor opened the meeting. He was not a ready 
speaker, and the sight of Evie, sitting so attentive in the 
front row, embarrassed him hideously. He said a few 
panting words about the needs of the museum and turned 
the meeting over to the Reverend Mr. Gordon, who was 
going to introduce the speaker—who was going, in fact, 
to do a little bit more than that. 

He advanced to the edge of the platform, looked down 
at Evie and smiled—after all, he wasn’t in the pulpit- 
folded his hands as if lawn frills ought to have been drip¬ 
ping from them, and began: 

“It is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce the 
speaker of the evening, although I myself am not at all 
in sympathy with the subject about which—which—about 
which he—” 

Aunt Georgy had a second of agony. Could he avoid 
using the verb “to speak”? It seemed impossible; but 
she underrated his mental agility. 

“—about which he is to make his interesting and in¬ 
structive address.” Mr. Gordon pulled down his waist¬ 
coat with a slight gesture of triumph. “The church,” he 


242 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


continued, “has never been in very cordial sympathy with 
what I may be permitted, perhaps, to call these lay 
miracle workers.” 

Here he threw a smile over his shoulder to Lisburn— 
a smile intended to be friendly and reassuring; but as it 
had in it something acid and scornful, it only served to 
make his words more hostile. “The church endures,” 
he went on, “and watches in each generation the rise and 
fall of a new science, a new philosophy, a new panacea, 
a new popular fad like this one.” 

Having done what he could to discredit the lecture, he 
gave the lecturer himself a flattering sentence: “A pro¬ 
fessor in one of our great universities, a new resident in 
this community, and my very good friend, Mr. Kenneth 
Lisburn.” 

The Reverend Mr. Gordon had been standing between 
Aunt Georgy and the speaker, so that she did not really 
get a good look at him until he stood up. 

Then she said “Mercy!” in a hissing whisper in Evie’s 
ear. 

“Mercy what?” asked little Evie, rather coldly. 

“So good-looking!” murmured Aunt Georgy. 

Evie moved her shoulders about. 

“Roughhewn,” she whispered back. 

Perhaps his features were a trifle rugged; but Aunt 
Georgy admired his hair—black as a crow under the 
bright though sometimes intermittent light of the Jeffer¬ 
son Light and Power Company. His eyes—black also 
—gleamed from deep sockets—“Like a rat’s in a cave,” 
Evie said. Lecturing was evidently nothing of an ad¬ 
venture to him. It did not embarrass him as it had em- 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


243 


barrassed the mayor; it did not stimulate him to an 
eloquence too suave and fluent as it did Mr. Gordon. 
It created not the least change in his personality. He 
stood on the platform as he swung in his chair in his 
college room, ready to say what he had to say as simply 
and as clearly as he could. 

He wasn’t so sure, he began, that his subject was popu¬ 
lar. He found most people enjoyed the exploration of 
other people’s unconscious, not of their own. In fact you 
could generally tell whether you were right in a diagnosis 
or not by the passion with which the victim contradicted 
you and the rapidity with which he invented explanations 
other than the true one. He was not, however, going 
to talk about phychoanalysis in general—rather too large 
a subject—with its relations to art and medicine. He was 
going to talk about the simple, commonplace actions of 
everyday life as clews to the unconscious—first, the so- 
called trivial ones. Nothing is really trivial. The 
tunes we whistle, the songs we sing, nine times out of ten 
have a wish-thought behind them. An amusing case of 
this had come to him the other day. A man had con¬ 
sulted him because he was being driven mad by a tune 
that ran in his head night and day. It was the Funeral 
March of a Marionette. Well, when it turned out that 
he was unhappily married and that his wife’s name was 
Dolly it wasn’t very hard to see whose funeral it was that 
he was mentally staging. 

Aunt Georgy was perfectly delighted. She saw that 
psychoanalysis was going to make life in Jefferson in¬ 
finitely more entertaining. The sphere of gossip was so 
remarkably extended. In old times one could only talk 


244 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


about what had been done, said or written; but now what 
was dreamed, what was desired, and, best of all, what was 
entirely omitted could be made as interesting as a crime. 
She wriggled down into her chair with pleasure as he 
went on to take up the question of the types that people 
fell in love with. Of course, we have all noticed how 
people tend to fall in love again and again with the same 
type. The spoiled weak son is forever looking for a 
mother type to take care of him; the girl brought up 
under the domination of the father idea is attracted by 
nothing but protective older types of men. 

Lisburn went on to describe such cases in greater de¬ 
tail so accurately that all through the audience married 
couples were nodding to one another and themselves. 
He described also a variant of this: How some people 
always abused the type that attracted them most; the 
virile man who is forever making fun of feminine weak¬ 
nesses, the womanly woman always taking on about man’s 
wickedness; they’re afraid of the black magic they at¬ 
tack; they are trying to exorcise the spell— 

As soon as the lecture was over, and while eager mem¬ 
bers of the audience were crowding to the platform to dis¬ 
cuss with the speaker the cases of mysterious friends who 
had dreamed this and forgotten that, Aunt Georgy beck¬ 
oned to Norma. 

“Do,” she said, “go and disentangle that interesting 
young man from his votaries, or whatever they are, and 
bring him down to be introduced to me.” 

“It was interesting, wasn’t it?” said Norma, with an 
effort at detachment. 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


245 


“I can never be sufficiently grateful,” answered Aunt 
Georgy. “It is so satisfactory the way he lays the 
strictly virtuous open to attack—the sort of people we’ve 
wanted to catch in a scandal and never been able to.” 

Norma nodded. 

“Oh, yes,” she said, “Ken thinks people like that have 
a very foul unconscious.” 

Aunt Georgy gave a slight snort and asked Norma if 
she remembered the Bab Ballad about: 

For only scoundrels dare to do 
What we consider just and true; 

And only good men do in fact, 

What we should think a dirty act. 

But Norma did not enjoy a humorous approach to a 
subject which she had only recently made her own. She 
withdrew; frowning slightly, and saying that she would 
try to get a word with him. 

“Oh, don’t let’s wait,” said Evie after a few minutes, 
during which the crowd on the platform increased. 

And so Aunt Georgy was led home by the mayor and 
her small niece without getting a word with the speaker. 
But she was a determined woman; and though Lisburn 
was a busy man, between lecturing at his college in the 
daytime and conferences with mentally maladjusted in 
Jefferson in the evening and giving a good many spare 
hours to Norma, a free afternoon was finally found and 
Norma brought him to tea. Little Evie, who happened 
to be spending a week or two with her aunt, immediately 
announced her intention of being out. 


246 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


“I don’t like that man,” she said. 

Aunt Georgy, always eager for information, inquired 
why she didn’t. 

Evie thought a long time, and then said, “Because he 
invades one’s private life.” 

“Does Norma feel that way?” 

Little Evie laughed. “Norma hasn’t got a private 
life,” she answered. 

At five o’clock, when Aunt Georgy was settled on her 
blue sofa, with her cane beside her and her tea set in 
front, Evie stole quiely out of the back door into the gar¬ 
den as Norma and the seer entered at the front. 

“Well, here he is, Aunt Georgy,” Norma shouted from 
the threshold, as if she had done a good deal for an el¬ 
derly relation. 

He came in and shook hands, unruffled by Norma’s 
introduction. 

“Where’s Evie?” Norma went on in a tone rather like 
a sheriff’s officer. 

“She was so sorry—she had an engagement,” said 
Aunt Georgy, quite as if it were true. 

Norma gave a short shout. 

“Oh, Ken knows she doesn’t like him,” she said; “and 
as a matter of fact, he isn’t very keen about her.” 

Lisburn looked at Miss Hadley, not exactly embar¬ 
rassed, but as if to say that when you told a thing to 
Norma you told it to the whole world. Aunt Georgy 
was interested in his not denying the accusation. She 
had never before happened to meet a man who actually 
did not like Evie. 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 247 

“You don’t admire my little niece?” she said, in her 
tone of seeking information merely. 

“No,” shouted Norma from the hearthrug. “He 
thinks she’s too colorless, too much tied up with inhibi¬ 
tions to be interesting.” 

“Of course, I see your niece’s great charm,” he an¬ 
swered; “but, as I said the other night, we all have our 
own type—the type that particularly appeals—and I am 
attracted to a more active, aggressive type.” 

“That’s why he likes me,” said Norma, with her mouth 
not empty of chocolate cake—“because I lead a great, 
free, ramping life. Isn’t that true, Ken?” 

“I’m sure it’s true you lead a great, free, ramping life, 
Norma,” said her aunt. 

“Yes, and that’s why I’m so healthy,” answered Norma, 
and she danced a little on her flat-heeled shoes. They 
were large shoes, but then, she was a large woman. 

Aunt Georgy was surprised to find herself a partisan. 
It annoyed her to hear her favorite niece dismissed as 
attractive to other men but not to this reader of human 
hearts. 

She said almost pettishly, “Evie is healthy, too—one 
of the healthiest people I ever knew.” 

“I bet she has dreams,” said Norma. 

“I doubt it.” 

“Everybody dreams, Aunt Georgy,” said Norma, really 
astonished at her aunt’s ignorance of the facts of life. 
“If you don’t remember your dreams, that only shows 
that they are so awful that you don’t allow them to 
come up into your conscious at all.” 


248 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


Aunt Georgy was opening her mouth to contradict, but 
found that Lisburn was speaking. 

“That’s the theory, Miss Hadley,” he said, less posi¬ 
tively than Norma; “that everyone dreams, and that our 
dreams represent our unfulfilled and unacknowledged 
desires. A type like—like Miss—” 

“Like Evie,” said Norma, a foe to last names. 

“That type,” Lisburn went on—“so restrained, so in¬ 
hibited, so what is called well-bred, is particularly likely 
to have dreams and almost certain to be unwilling to ad¬ 
mit having them.” 

He stopped as a slight sound at the door that led to 
the garden made them all turn. Little Evie was stand¬ 
ing there—had evidently been standing there for some 
time. She had on a sky-blue dress, a large childish hat 
and her arms were full of cherry blossoms. She looked 
more than usually like a fashion plate of the ’40’s. 

Norma immediately shouted at her, “You do dream, 
don’t you, Evie? Be honest for once in your life.” 

Aunt Georgy, who was herself an honest person, was 
aware of an utterly unsuppressed wish that, whatever 
the facts were, Evie would say that she had never had a 
dream in her life. Instead the girl, with her blue eyes 
fixed on Lisburn, was nodding slowly. 

“I’ve begun to dream lately,” she said in a low tone. 

Norma was delighted. 

“I knew it,” she said. “I’d have bet on it. It’s ex¬ 
traordinary how one gets to know these things. Tell 
us what your dream is about, Evie.” 

“Mercy!” exclaimed Aunt Georgy. “Isn’t a person 
allowed more than one dream nowadays?” 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


249 


Evie sank down on the sofa at her aunt’s feet. 

“Mine’s always the same,” she murmured. 

“Ah,” said Lisburn, “ a recurrent dream.” He looked 
at her with interest. “Does it trouble you?” 

Evie made a cooing sound like a dove, in doubt. 
Norma began to tease her to tell. Aunt Georgy thought 
she was tiresome, nagging and bothering like that. She 
told her to let Evie alone. Norma shrugged her shoul¬ 
ders. 

“It’s so characteristic of that introverted type,” she 
said, “not to be willing to be frank enough to be cured.” 

“Can one be cured?” asked Evie, and she raised her 
eyes to Lisburn. 

He was a busy man, and he had stood up to go. 

“I might—if it troubles you—be able to help you.” 

“Even,” said Evie, “though you are not interested in 
my type?” 

“Oh,” cried Norma, “isn’t that like you, Evie! You 
overheard the whole thing, and instead of having it out 
then and there, as I should have, you wait and give him 
a poisoned dig in the ribs when he’s trying to be nice to 
you.” 

Evie repeated in exactly the same tone: “Even though 
you are not interested in my type?” 

“I’m always interested in a case,” he answered. 

They exchanged unfriendly looks. Then he came to 
the sofa to say good-by to Aunt Georgy. She was rum¬ 
maging for a pencil among the litter of papers and books 
beside her. She wanted to write down the name of 
his book, but he insisted very civilly on sending it to 
her. 


250 WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 

When he and Norma had gone Aunt Georgy turned to 
Evie. 

“Pm glad,” she said, “that you did not tell them what 
your dream was about. They would have been sure to 
make something horrid out of it.” 

“I couldn’t tell them.” 

“You mean it is horrid?” 

“I hadn’t made it up yet,” answered Evie. “Dear 
Aunt Georgy, I never, never dream. I’m always asleep 
before I get the covers well tucked in at the nape of my 
neck, and I never wake up until someone comes in and 
opens the shutters. Norma was so determined that I 
should have a dream—perhaps she won’t be so pleased. 
Mine is going to be a hard one to interpret. Interested 
in cases, is he? Well, mine is going to be an interesting 
one. Wait till we get his book.” 

The book was left at the door after dinner, and Aunt 
Georgy plunged at once into it. She habitually read as 
a famished animal eats, tearing the heart out of a book, 
utterly oblivious of the world until she had finished. At 
last she looked up. 

“Really, Evie,” she exclaimed, “I’m afraid you can’t 
get a dream out of this. I’m not old-fashioned, but I 
must say—” She did not say what it was she must 
say. 

Evie took the book calmly. 

“Of course, I shall be perfectly innocent as to what my 
dream means, Aunt Georgy,” she said. “Let’s see. X, 
a young employe in a shoe factory, dreamed— My 
goodness, what an unpleasant man X must have been! 
Now this isn’t bad— Or, no, that would involve 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


251 


mother. I don’t want to drag poor mother into it. 
Something wonderful might be done with a tune—Old 
Black Joe, if only his name were Joe, which it isn’t. . . . 
And I shall begin to do a strange and apparently meaning¬ 
less thing—to have a compulsion. I mean—like butter¬ 
ing my bread on both sides—” 

“Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous?” said Aunt 
Georgy. “They interpret everything so oddly.” 

“Yes, it’s dangerous; but everything is. If you do 
nothing, that’s the worst of all.” And Evie sank into 
the book. 

A few days later, when Lisburn reached home in the 
late afternoon, he found a note waiting for him at his 
house. It was written in Evie’s neat, fine hand, and 
said: 

Dear Mr. Lisburn: Do you remember offering to help 
me in case the dream—of which I think I spoke to you—be¬ 
gan to give me trouble? I must say I hesitate to take up 
your time, as the whole thing seems so trivial [Lisburn gave 
a little shake of his head, an indication that such experiences 
were far from trivial] but it would be a relief to me to talk 
it over with you, and I shall stop at your house for a few 
minutes this evening on the chance that you may have a spare 
minute. 

He laid the letter on the table and eyed it sideways as 
he lit his pipe. Then he went to the telephone and called 
up Norma. He said he was sorry, but that he wouldn’t 
be able to come that evening for bridge. Norma, as she 
herself had observed, did not suffer from inhibitions. 
Her emotions found easy expression, and her emotion on 


252 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


this occasion was disappointment mingled with anger. 
She expressed it freely over the telephone. Lisburn hung 
up the receiver sharply. Self-expression was all very 
well, he thought; but there was such a thing as having 
no self-control. It was necessary for him to have a calm 
and receptive mind in order to be of any assistance to 
this child who was coming to consult him. He must 
make a mental picture of her personality and recall her 
gestures, her vocabulary. 

Soon after eight he heard her step on the piazza and 
went to the door himself. She entered with that timid, 
conscious, apologetic manner which had become so fa¬ 
miliar to him in his patients. It seemed as if she would 
have liked to make fun of herself for coming if only she 
had been less frightened at finding herself there. The 
hand she gave him shook. He drew forward a deep com¬ 
fortable chair for her. 

“Now tell me everything you can think of,” he said; 
“your own way; I won’t interrupt.” 

She drew an uncertain breath. 

“Well, I didn’t think anything about it—you know 
how casually I spoke the other day—but now I find it 
is beginning to affect my conduct. I find I cannot 
bring myself to get into an automobile. I have never 
driven a car myself, but I have always enjoyed driving 
with other people; but now— This dream of mine is 
about a car.” 

She described the dream at great length, though it 
was strangely lacking in incident. It was merely that 
she was driving a small car of her own—a very pretty 
white car with a good deal of blue about it. She was 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


253 


driving along a wide street, and suddenly the car began 
to skid, slowly at first and then faster and faster; and 
.though her agony became extreme and she turned the 
steering wheel more and more, she could do nothing— 
the car made straight for the bushes, where some terrific 
but unseen and unknown object was lurking. 

He made her go over the details of it two or three times. 
The shade of blue was about the same shade as the dress 
she was wearing, but he elicited very little more. She 
could not, she said, get any clew as to what was hidden 
in the bushes, except that it was something she was 
horribly afraid of. 

“And yet,” he said, “you go toward it?” 

“Yes; but entirely against my will, Mr. Lisburn.” 

“You’re sure you go against your will?” 

Her voice was almost hysterical as she protested, “Yes 
—yes, indeed!” 

“And yet you go?” 

“No, Mr. Lisburn, the car goes.” 

“Don’t you think you and the car are the same?” 

She gave him a long wondering stare, and presently in¬ 
sisted that she must go. She promised, however, that 
she would do everything in her power to find out what 
was hidden in those sinister bushes. She was to keep a 
pencil and paper beside her bed and write down every- 
think she could remember as soon as she waked up in 
the morning. 

She hurried home to tell Aunt Georgy all that had oc¬ 
curred and was disappointed to find her aunt established 
at the bridge table with Norma and two of Norma’s 
friends. It seemed that Mr. Lisburn had been expected 


254 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


as a fourth and they had been obliged to come to Aunt 
Georgy at the last minute to make up the table. Norma 
was still angry. 

“They can’t have it both ways—these psychoanalysts,” 
Norma was saying. “It’s always a Freudian forgetting 
—a wish-thought—when you forget an engagement with 
them, and something quite professional and unavoidable 
when they break an engagement with you.” 

“What Norma means, Evie,” said Aunt Georgy, with¬ 
out raising her eyes from the interesting hand which had 
just been dealt her, “is that she suspects Mr. Lisburn of 
having had something more amusing to do.” 

Evie shook her head as if you couldn’t be sure with 
men like that. 

“Perhaps he had,” she said. 

Then Aunt Georgy knew the interview had gone well. 

Three days later, not having heard anything more from 
her, he came to the house late in the afternoon. He was 
in his own car, and he suggested that perhaps he could 
help her to overcome her repugnance to motoring. At 
first she refused with every appearance of terror; but 
soon she admitted that with him she would feel per¬ 
fectly safe, and so she yielded and got in. 

She spoke little, and he could hear that she drew her 
breath in a tremulous and disturbing manner. At last, 
in a lonely road, her terror seemed to overmaster her, 
and she opened the door and would have sprung out 
while the car was going thirty-five miles an hour if 
Lisburn had not held her in. 

As soon as he had brought the car to a standstill he 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 255 

took his arm away, while little Evie cowered in the seat 
beside him. 

“You see,” she said at last, “how it is with me? If 
you had not been there I should have jumped out and 
been killed. It’s stronger than I am.” 

“I see,” he answered gently. “Well, if it happens again 
I won’t force you to stay in the car. You shall get out 
and walk home.” 

She thanked him warmly for his concession, but it did 
not happen again. 

After this they had conferences every evening, as her 
stay at Jefferson was coming to an end, and she still did 
not seem to be able to see what was the emotional center 
of her dream. 

The fact that Lisburn was trying to help little Evie 
soon began to be known, and the knowledge affected 
different people differently. Norma said that she should 
think Evie would be ashamed to take up so much of Mr. 
Lisburn’s time, considering how contemptuous she had 
been about the whole science of psychoanalysis. The 
Reverend Mr. Gordon said that he had never been in any 
doubt that the human spirit needed the confessional, but 
that only a man in holy orders was fit to receive con¬ 
fession. The mayor was a little more violent. He said 
that it appeared to him that this fellow was practicing 
medicine without a license, and that if the law could not 
reach him it ought to be able to. He hoped it wasn’t 
doing little Miss Evie any harm. Aunt Georgy tried to 
reassure him, and said Evie seemed in the best of health 
and spirits, at which the mayor, looking gloomier than 


256 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


ever, said he was much relieved. Aunt Georgy had 
just been telling this to Evie as she was about to start 
for her last conference. She was going away the next 
day. 

“Have you decided what it is that is hidden in the 
bushes ?” her aunt asked her. 

Evie nodded. 

“Yes,” she said; “it’s a black panther—a beautiful, 
lithe, vigorous, graceful, dangerous wild animal.” 

“Mercy!” exclaimed Aunt Georgy. “He’ll think it’s 
himself.” 

“Do you think he’s a vain man, Aunt Georgy?” 

“Everyone’s as vain as that.” 

“Well, that isn’t my fault,” said Evie, and went on her 
way. 

Aunt Georgy shook her head. Life was often like 
that, she thought—a woman despised a man for believing 
something that she had exercised all her ingenuity to 
make him believe. 

Lisburn was on his feet when Evie entered, and as 
soon as he had seen her settled in the deep chair he began 
to pace up and down; like a panther, she thought, but 
did not say so; that would have been crude. 

“Well,” he said, fixing his black eyes on her, “you’ve 
found out what it is, haven’t you?” 

She nodded. 

“You are clever,” she answered. “I don’t know what 
you’ll make of it—it sounds so silly.” She looked up 
at him, rubbing the back of one hand against the palm of 
the other. “It’s—it’s a panther; just a beautiful black 
panther; a splendid, lithe, graceful, dangerous wild ani- 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


257 


mal.” Even little Evie was susceptible at times to em¬ 
barrassment, and at this moment she could not endure 
the piercing stare of those black eyes. She dropped her 
eyes modestly and murmured, “Oh, Mr. Lisburn, do you 
think you can help me?” 

“I’m sure I can,” he answered; “at least, I can if I 
may be perfectly candid.” 

Evie said that was all she asked—candor. 

“In that case—” said he. He walked to the door 
and leaned against it as if the revelations he was about 
to make were such that she might try to escape before 
she heard him out. “In that case,” he repeated, in that 
smooth, almost honeyed tone in which the psychoanalyst 
clothes even the most shocking statements, “let me say 
that you are the most phenomenal little liar, little Evie, 
that I have ever met—yes, among all the many I have 
known I gladly hand you the palm.” 

“Mr. Lisburn!” said Evie, but she was so much sur¬ 
prised and interested that she did not do justice to her 
protest. 

“What makes me angry,” he went on in his civil tone, 
“is that you should imagine you could get away with it. 
However much of an ass you may consider me, you 
ought to have known that there was enough in the science 
of psychoanalysis to show from the very beginning that 
you were a fraud.” 

“Not from the beginning!” said Evie. 

“From the first evening. You haven’t one single symp¬ 
tom of a person with a neurosis—not one. If you knew 
a little bit more—pooh, if you knew anything at all 
about the subject—” 


258 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


“I read your book,” she answered, as if this put the 
blame on him. 

“Not very intelligently, then, or you would have done 
a better fraud.” 

“You were willing to waste a lot of time on a fraud.” 

“It hasn’t been wasted. And that brings me to my 
second point. I will now tell you what perhaps you don’t 
know, and that is why you did it.” 

“I know perfectly well, thank you,” replied Evie. 
“I did it because you were so poisonous about me that 
afternoon at Aunt Georgy’s. I thought I’d like to show 
you—” 

“That is a rationalization,” he interrupted, waving it 
away with one hand. “You did it because you are 
strongly attracted to me.” 

“Attracted to you!” said Evie in a most offensive tone. 

“I am the panther in the bushes.” 

Evie laughed contemptuously. 

“I knew you’d think you were the panther,” she said; 
“I simply knew it.” 

“Of course you did,” he answered. “That’s the very 
reason you dreamed it.” 

“But I didn’t dream it,” she returned triumphantly. 
“I thought you had grasped that. I didn’t dream it. I 
never dream.” 

He was not triumphed over. 

“Well,” he said, “you made it up; that’s the same 
thing—a daydream, a romance.” 

“I made it up particularly in order to deceive you,” 
Evie explained. 

“That’s what you think,” he answered; “but it isn’t 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


259 


true. You made it up in order to let me know you were 
attracted to me, for I repeat that you are attracted to 
me.” 

Little Evie sprang up from the deep chair in which she 
had sat at ease during so many evening conferences. 

“You may repeat it until you are black in the face,” 
she said; “but I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!” ; 

“Don’t you see that the emotion with which you re¬ 
pudiate the idea proves that it’s the truth?” 

An inspiration came to her. 

“Then why,” she demanded—“the other afternoon 
when you explained so much why you didn’t like me— 
why doesn’t that prove that you are attracted to me?” 

“Little Evie,” he said, “it does. That’s the truth. 
You are almost everything of which I disapprove in 
woman. I love you.” 

He approached and took her in his arms. 

“I hate you,” said Evie, in a tone too conversational 
to be impressive. 

He behaved as if she had not spoken. She drew 
away from him, though not wholly out of the circle of 
his arms. 

“I don’t think you can have understood me,” she re¬ 
marked coldly. “I said I hated you.” 

“I feel more sure of you than if you had said you 
loved me.” 

“Then I’ll say I love you.” 

“Yes, dear, I know you do.” 

She sighed. 

“You’re not a very consistent man, are you?” she 
said. 


260 


WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 


She spoke in a tone of remote philosophy, but she 
leaned her forehead against his chest. 

When the story came out, as of course it was bound 
to do—for both Evie and Lisburn seemed to think they 
had been rather clever about the whole thing, and they 
told everybody—Fanny was deeply shocked. In fact, 
she owned that if she had been Evie’s mother she would 
never have held up her head again. 

“To think,” she said, “of Evie, who has always seemed 
so dignified and well-bred and not of this generation at 
all—to think that she invented the whole thing in order 
to attract Mr. Lisburn’s attention!” 

“Fanny,” said Aunt Georgy, “do you remember the 
first day you met your present husband? You twisted 
your ankle just so that he might have to carry you up¬ 
stairs to your room. Well, my dear, you recovered en¬ 
tirely as soon as he had gone, and walked all over every¬ 
where. A strange young man carried you in his arms, 
Fanny. If you ask me, I call the new technique more 
delicate and modest than the old.” 


THE NEW STOICS 


M R. BROUGHAM stood waiting in the wings. 

Never before had he made a speech; never 
had he been upon a stage, except to sit safely 
with a delegation, in a row, behind the ice-water pitcher. 
He had a small dry patch in his throat which constant 
swallowing failed to improve, and the tips of his fingers 
kept getting cold and very distant. He was about to 
make a Liberty Loan speech, and he was suffering more 
than he had expected; but, as he kept murmuring to him¬ 
self, “Dulce et decorum est.” 

At twenty-eight he had volunteered among the first in 
the Spanish War, and it had been no fault of his that he 
had never got any nearer the front than Chattanooga. At 
forty-eight he could still speak for his country—at least he 
hoped he could. How absurd to be nervous! This was 
no time to be thinking of one’s own feelings. He took out 
his handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hands. 
“Well, Mr. Brougham,” said the loud bold voice of the 
local chairman, “shall we go on?” What was one vic¬ 
tim more or less to him in his insatiable campaign for 
speakers? 

“By all means,” answered Brougham in a tone which 
even in his own ears sounded like that of a total stranger. 

His only conscious thought was grateful remembrance 
that his wife was kept at the canteen that evening, and 
couldn’t be in the audience, which he found himself re¬ 
garding as a hostile body waiting to devour him. He sa? 
261 


262 


THE NEW STOICS 


trying to relax the muscles of his face during the chair¬ 
man’s short address; and then the fatal sentence began: 
“ . . . the great pleasure . . . introduce ... so well 
known . . . Mr. Walter Brougham, who will say a few 
rousing words to you on this great subject.” 

What a silly adjective “rousing” was, Brougham 
thought as he came forward. He had no intention what¬ 
ever of being rousing. He wondered if he had the in¬ 
tention of being anything except absolutely silent. He 
lifted the lid and looked into his mind as into an un¬ 
explored box. Was there anything in it? Why, yes; 
rather to his surprise he found there was. 

“My friends,” he began, “this is no time for oratory.” 
Hearty, and to Brougham totally unexpected, applause 
greeted this sentiment. “This is a time for cool, steady, 
clear-eyed vision.” That was a mistake; of course vision 
was clear-eyed. “This is a time to ask ourselves this 
question: How is it that we hesitate to give our money, 
and yet stand ready—every one of us—to give our lives 
and—harder still—our sons’ lives?” 

“Hear, hear!” cried a voice from the audience, fresh, 
young and familiar. Brougham looked down; yes, there 
they were—his own two boys, David, not eighteen, and 
Lawrence, hardly fifteen. Their blond, well-brushed 
heads towered above the rest of the row and were easily 
recognizable. He could see the expressions of their faces 
—cool, serene, friendly approval. They’re .too damned 
philosophical, he said to himself; and as he went on 
speaking, with all that was mortal in him concentrated on 
his words, in some entirely different part of his being 
a veil was suddenly lifted and he saw something that he 


THE NEW STOICS 


263 


had been trying not to see for months—namely, that he 
was dissatisfied with his elder son’s attitude toward the 
war—it was cool; cool like his approval of the speech. 
Not that Mr. Brougham wanted his son to volunteer at 
his age—quite the contrary; he sincerely believed it was 
every man’s duty to wait until he had reached the age 
designated by his country; but he did want the boy to 
want to volunteer. He wanted to be able to say at the 
club as other fathers were saying: “What gets into these 
young fellows? I’ve had to forbid my boy—” Per¬ 
haps if his self-vision had been perfect he would have ad¬ 
mitted that he had sometimes said it. 

And then it occurred to him that this was the moment 
to stir their hearts—to make one of those speeches which 
might not touch the audience but which would inflame the 
patriotism of youth. Forgetting his recent pledge he 
plunged into oratory—the inherited oratory of the Fourth 
of July, he snatched up any adjectives as long as they 
came in threes, called patriotism by name, and spoke of 
the flag as Old Glory. Hurried on by his own warmth he 
reached his climax too soon, ended his speech before the 
audience expected and began asking for subscriptions 
before anyone was ready. 

There was an awkward silence. Then a young voice 
spoke up: “One one-hundred-dollar bond.” Yes, it 
was David. Mr. Brougham’s heart leaped with hope; 
had the boy been moved? Was this the first fruit of re¬ 
pentance? He looked down, hoping to meet the upward 
glance of a devotee, but David was whispering something 
to his younger brother which made the latter giggle 
foolishly. 


264 


THE NEW STOICS 


The ball once set rolling went fast. Subscriptions 
poured in; it was a successful evening—almost as success¬ 
ful as the evening made famous by a great screen artist. 
Mr. Brougham was warmly congratulated by the local 
chairman. 

“We shall call on you again, Brougham/” he said 
gayly. 

Mr. Brougham nodded, but his thought was: Is noth¬ 
ing enough for these fellows? 

His two boys were waiting for him at the stage door. 
“You’re good, sir, you’re good!” they cried, patting him 
on the back. 

“I never thought he’d let them have it so mild,” said 
Lawrence. 

Mr. Brougham did not mind being laughed at—at least 
he always said he didn’t—but he couldn’t bear to have 
patriotism in any form held up to ridicule. He thought 
to himself: 

“They don’t know what it costs a man of my age to go 
on a stage and make a speech. I don’t enjoy making 
myself conspicuous.” 

“We’ll stop and get your mother at the canteen,” he 
said sternly. 

“Oh, yes, this is mother’s night for saving the country, 
isn’t it?” said Lawrence. 

“Did you know,” said David to his brother, across his 
father’s head, for they were both taller than he, “did you 
know that a gob tipped mother the other evening? So 
pleased with his coffeej that he flicked her a dime for 
herself.” 


THE NEW STOICS 


265 


“Oh, you sailor-boys! ” said Lawrence in a high falsetto. 

This was really more than Mr. Brougham could bear in 
his exalted state. “I don’t like that, boys,” he said. 

“No, father,” answered David; “but you know we 
never tipped mother; in fact, it’s always been quite the 
other way.” 

“I mean I don’t like your tone of ridicule, of—of— 
of —” He couldn’t think of the word he wanted, and 
felt conscious that David had it on the tip of his tongue 
but was too tactful to interrupt. “You boys don’t seem 
to appreciate the sacrifice, the physical strain for a woman 
of your mother’s age—standing all evening handing out 
sandwiches—not accustomed to hard work either.” 

Both boys looked gravely ahead of them, and Mr. 
Brougham had a sickening conviction they were both 
trying to think of something to say that would calm him. 

The canteen was just closing, and the two boys made 
themselves useful in putting things away. “Just as if it 
were a school picnic,” their father thought. 

As soon as they were on their way home Mrs. Brougham 
asked about the speech. Had it gone well? 

“Oh, father was great, mother,” David answered. “He 
took it from them in wads, and presented Lawrence and 
me to his country with every bond.” 

“A lady behind us was awfully affected,” said Law¬ 
rence. “She kept whispering that she understood the 
speaker had two lovely boys of his own.” 

“I could hardly keep Lawrence from telling her that 
she had not been misinformed.” 

Mr. Brougham sighed. This was not the tone of young 


266 


THE NEW STOICS 


men suddenly roused to a new vision of patriotism. He 
said aloud: “I was glad you felt financially able to take 
a bond yourself, David.” 

“Oh, yes,” answered his son. “I sold my boat yes¬ 
terday.” 

Mr. Brougham was not so Spartan a parent that he did 
not feel a pang to think of the boy without his favorite 
pastime on this perhaps his last summer. 

“Quite right,” he said. “This is no year for pleasure 
boats.” 

“You get a good price for boats this year,” said David. 

There it was again—that note Mr. Brougham didn’t 
like. Even if David’s motives had been financial and not 
patriotic he might have allowed Lawrence to see an exam¬ 
ple of self-sacrifice. Instead Lawrence was getting just 
like his brother. 

Brougham was not a man who habitually eased his 
burdens by casting them on his wife, but that night when 
they went upstairs he took her into his confidence. 

“Are you satisfied with David’s attitude toward the 
war?” he began. 

She was a silent, deep woman whose actions always 
astonished those who had no intuitive knowledge of the 
great general trends of her nature. She and David usu¬ 
ally understood each other fairly well. 

Now she shook her head. “No,” she said. 

“Good Lord!” said poor Mr. Brougham. “I don’t 
want the boy shot in a trench. I think it’s his duty to 
wait a year or two; but I can’t see that he has any 
enthusiasm, any eagerness, hardly any interest. He 
seized the paper last evening, and I supposed that he 


THE NEW STOICS 


267 


wanted to read about the offensive. Not at all! After 
a glance at the headlines he turned to the baseball news. 
Do you understand him?” 

“No,” said his mother. 

“At his age I should have been in this war, with or 
without my parents’ consent. Mind you, I don’t want 
him in it—not for a year or two. But why doesn’t he 
want to get in? He’s not a coward.” 

“No,” said his mother, and then she added: “I’ve 
thought a great deal about it, and I think it’s because 
he’s so young—so immature.” 

“Immature!” cried Mr. Brougham. “Why, he’s al¬ 
ways using words I don’t know the meaning of!” 

“Perhaps he doesn’t either,” said his wife. “That’s 
immature, isn’t it? But I meant the immaturity of not 
seeing responsibilities—not taking them up, at least. 
You see, my dear, he’s very young—only a year out of 
school. It’s natural enough.” 

“It’s not natural at all,” answered Mr. Brougham. 
“Just out of school—school is the very place to learn 
patriotism—drilling and all that—and I’m sure Granby 
is one of the most patriotic men I ever knew. He inspires 
most of his boys. No, I don’t understand. I shall speak 
to David about his attitude.” 

“Oh, don’t! You’ll have him enlisting to-morrow.” 

“No; for I shall explain to him that he must wait.” 

She smiled. “You’re going to stir him up to want to 
do something which you won’t allow him to do. Is that 
sensible, dear?” 

It wasn’t sensible, but—more important—it was in¬ 
evitable. Mr. Brougham, feeling as he did, could not be 


268 


THE NEW STOICS 


silent. He had always been proud of his boys, had al¬ 
ways assumed they were stuff to be proud of. They 
had done decently in their lessons, well in their athletics. 
What could a father ask more? Now for the first time 
he found himself questioning his right to be proud, and 
the doubt was like poison in his system. He must speak 
to his son. 

The difficulty of “speaking to” people is that we either 
take too portentous a tone, and thus ruffle the minds we 
mean to impress, or else that we speak so casually as to 
make no impression at all. Mr. Brougham’s leanings 
were all to the former manner, and recognizing this weak¬ 
ness he made one more effort at the indirect attack. Hear¬ 
ing that his nephew, a lieutenant of infantry, was about 
to sail, he sent for him to come and dine. In his greet¬ 
ing of the young man he tried to express his respect for 
the uniform, even when decorated by nothing more than 
a gold bar. 

“I envy you, my boy,” he said. “I remember how I 
felt when I first put on those clothes in 1898—not that 
we can compare that war with this, but the emotion is 
the same—the emotion is always the same. We all envy 
you in this house. 

David looked rather impish. “Envy him!” he said. 
“And him such a bad sailor!” 

At this Brougham’s brows contracted, but the lieu¬ 
tenant smiled. 

“Yes,” he said; “won’t I wish I had stayed at home!” 

This sentiment would have shocked Mr. Brougham ex¬ 
cept that he believed he recognized in it the decent Anglo- 


THE NEW STOICS 269 

Saxon cloak of a profound feeling—very different from 
David’s cold inaction. 

As soon as dinner was over he left the boys alone and 
took a chair on the piazza, from which he could watch the 
expressions of their faces. They fell at once into a con¬ 
versation of the deepest interest; so interesting that they 
began to move their hands about in unaccustomed ges¬ 
tures. Once David lifted his and brought it down with a 
sidewise swoop. 

“That’s it!” a voice rang out. “It’s great!” 

Mr. Brougham felt justified in moving a little nearer. 
He then found that the subject of discussion was jazz- 
band records for the phonograph. 

The next morning, looking out of his window early, he 
saw David in his bathing suit trying, with a seriousness 
that might have drilled a company, to teach a new hand¬ 
spring to Lawrence. And this made it impossible for Mr. 
Brougham to be silent any longer. 

When David came back to the house, dressed, but 
with his hair still dark and wet from his swim, his father 
stopped him. 

“Sit down a minute,” he said. “I want to speak to 
you. I want you to explain your attitude toward this 
war.” 

This opening sentence, which he had thought of while 
the handsprings were going on, would have been excellent 
if he could have given his son time to answer it, but he 
couldn’t; his emotions swept him on, and at the end of 
five minutes he was still talking: 

“The Civil War was fought by boys your age or 


270 THE NEW STOICS 

younger. I don’t say it was best, but it’s the fact. And 
here you are—you’ve had every advantage—of educa¬ 
tion, of luxury, of protection. Don’t you care for the 
traditions of your country? You’re not a child any more. 
You’re old enough to understand that a hideous catas¬ 
trophe has come upon the world, and before long you 
must take your part in remedying it. What’s your at¬ 
titude to the war?” 

“I think we’re going to win it, sir, in the end.” 

“Other people are going to win it?” 

“Would you approve of my enlisting at once? I un¬ 
derstood—” 

“No, I would not approve of it, as I’ve told you,” an¬ 
swered his father, feeling that somehow he was being un¬ 
justly cornered. “But because a man’s too young to make 
a soldier, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have any patriot¬ 
ism in his make-up—should be absolutely indifferent, with 
his head full of handsprings and jazz bands.” 

“I’m not indifferent,” said David; “and as for jazz 
bands, even the men at the Front like them.” 

“But you’re not at the Front—if you get my point.” 

“I don’t believe I do,” said David. 

Civil as David’s tone was there was of course a trace 
of hostility in the words themselves, and in his distress 
Mr. Brougham decided to go and consult Granby, the 
head of the school where David had been for five years 
and where Lawrence still was. 

Brougham only went to Granby in desperate straits, 
for he was a little afraid of his son’s schoolmaster. 
Granby was a tall bald man of fifty, with an expression 
at once stern and humble—stern with the habit of in- 


THE NEW STOICS 


271 


numerable decisions, humble with the consciousness that 
half of them had been wrong. Brougham admired him, 
but could not be his friend, owing to the fact that he al¬ 
ways became in Granby’s presence an essential parent and 
nothing else. Mrs. Brougham, with the protection of 
her long silences, managed better to retain her individual¬ 
ity in his presence. 

“I’ve come to consult you about David,” he began. 

Granby visibly shrank. “Don’t tell me he’s gone too!” 

“No—he hasn’t; that’s it.” 

Brougham managed to tell his story very satisfactorily, 
for Granby had the power, rarer than is supposed, of ex¬ 
tracting an idea from spoken words. 

“He has no enthusiasm—no emotion. I can’t under¬ 
stand him. At his age, I venture to say, I would— 
Well, I’ve come to you. You’ve had thirty years’ ex¬ 
perience of boys.” 

“Yes,” said Granby with his reserved, pedagogic man¬ 
ner. “I’ve been at it thirty years.” He stared at the 
floor and then, looking up, added: “But I’ve only had 
four years of boys as they are now.” 

This was a new idea to Brougham. 

“You mean boys are different?” 

“Of course, they’re different!” said Granby. “Even 
we are different, and they— Boys I was giving demerits 
to and scolding about Latin prose last winter are fighting 
the war for us to-day. Roberts—I used to make Rob¬ 
erts’ life a burden to him about the dative of reference— 
he was killed last month rescuing his machine gun; and 
here I am doing the same safe task— Well, I never felt 
like that about my work before. Different? Of course 


272 


THE NEW STOICS 


they’re different! They are not boys any more. They 
are men; and we are old men.” 

There was, naturally enough, a pause, for this was by 
no means a conception of life which Mr. Brougham 
could accept offhand; and in the silence the door opened 
and David himself strode in—and stopped with every ap¬ 
pearance of disappointment on seeing his father. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m inter¬ 
rupting you. I’ll come back.” 

“What did you want?” said Mr. Granby. 

David paused, looking less like a man and more like 
a boy in his indecision. Then his jaw set as he took his 
determination. 

“I wanted you to tell my father something, but as long 
as he’s here I’d better tell him myself. I took the exami¬ 
nations last month for an aviation camp, and I’ve just 
heard that I’m accepted.” 

Relief and horror struggling in Mr. Brougham like 
opposing waves resulted in calm. 

“But, my son,” he said, “why have you concealed it? 
You did not think I’d oppose you?” 

David moved restlessly. 

“Oh, no,” he answered. “It wasn’t that.” He looked 
at Mr. Granby and smiled. “Father’s awfully tyrannical 
about this war,” he said. “He wants everyone to feel 
just as he does.” 

“But don’t you feel as I do?” asked his father. “Why, 
you’ve just proved that you do!” 

“Not a bit!” said David, and he spoke with a force 
neither of the men had ever heard from him before. “I 
don’t feel a bit as you do, sir, and what’s more, I don’t 


THE NEW STOICS 


273 


want to!” He stopped. “But we needn’t go into that,” 
he added, and seemed about to leave the room. 

Granby looked at Brougham. “It must be right here 
if we could get at it,” he said. “Tell us, David, what is 
it in your father’s attitude that you don’t sympathize 
with?” 

“And my mother’s too.” 

“And mine?” asked Granby. 

David hesitated an instant. 

“You don’t seem to care so much about having us all 
feel the way you do if what we do is right. But my father 
and mother don’t care what I do unless I get excited 
about it.” 

“A healthy emotion is not excitement,” said Mr. 
Brougham. “But you have been cold, absolutely cold to 
the horror of the world’s bleeding to death, to all this un¬ 
natural disaster that has come upon us.” 

“It doesn’t seem exactly unnatural to me,” answered 
the boy slowly. “At least I’ve got used to it. You see, 
sir, ever since I knew anything—ever since I was Law¬ 
rence’s age—war has been about the most natural thing 
going. I suppose it’s very different for all of you. Com¬ 
ing at the end of a perfectly peaceful life, it must seem 
like a sort of dirty accident; but even so, it’s awfully 
queer to me the way you and mother have to lash your¬ 
selves up to doing anything—” 

“Lash ourselves up?” exclaimed Mr. Brougham. 

“Yes, with the idea of patriotism and self-sacrifice, 
when it’s so perfectly clear what we all have to do. Why, 
father, I feel just as if I were a policeman, or, no, a fire¬ 
man—I feel as if I were a fireman and you expected me 


274 


THE NEW STOICS 


to get off something about patriotism and self-sacrifice 
every time I went to put out a fire. A fireman goes, all 
right—it’s his job; but I dare say he often wishes he 
could stay in bed. No one says his heart is cold, and no 
more it is, to my mind. It must be fun to go off in a 
burst of patriotic enthusiasm. I know, for I’ve often 
felt like that about football. But this is different. This 
isn’t a sport—it’s a long disagreeable job. And I must 
say, father, it makes me pretty tired to have you think 
me a slacker because I don’t get, and don’t want to get, 
excited about it.” 

“You misunderstand me,” said his father. “I don’t 
think any man a slacker who waits to think it over be¬ 
fore he makes the supreme sacrifice and offers”—Mr. 
Brougham’s voice took a deeper note—“his life.” 

David turned sharply to Granby. 

“There,” he said, “that’s what I hate! I hate that 
attitude toward death—as if it were something you 
couldn’t speak of in the drawing-room. Death isn’t so 
bad,” he added, as if saying what he could for an absent 
friend. 

With this Mr. Brougham couldn’t even pretend to 
agree; death seemed to him very bad indeed—about the 
worst possible, though not to be evaded by brave men on 
that account. 

“Ah,” he said to Granby, “that’s the beauty of youth 
—it doesn’t think about death at all.” 

“Nonsense,” said David. “I beg your pardon, sir, but 
isn’t it nonsense? Of course, we think of it—a lot more 
than you do. The chances are about one in twenty that 
I’ll be killed. When you were my age you were plan- 


THE NEW STOICS 


275 


ning your career, and college, and you thought you’d 
be married sometime, and you were getting your name 
put up at clubs you couldn’t get into for years. But 
fellows of my age aren’t making any plans—it would be 
pretty foolish if we did. We haven’t got any future, as 
you had it. I don’t know if you call that thinking about 
death. I do—thinking about it as a fact, not a horror. 
We’ve been up against it for the last four years, and we’ve 
got used to it. That’s what none of you older people 
seem to be able to get into your heads. We don’t par¬ 
ticularly mind the idea of dying. And now I think I’ll 
run home and tell my mother.” 

Neither of the men spoke for a few minutes after he 
had gone. Mr. Brougham was shocked. He had just 
caught himself back from telling David that he ought to 
be afraid of dying—which of course was not at all what 
he meant. He himself had always feared death—most of 
the men he knew feared it—only hadn’t allowed that 
fear to influence their actions. He had always regarded 
this fear as a great universal limitation. He felt as if 
a great gulf had suddenly opened between him and his 
son. More than that, he felt that to live free from the 
terror was too great an emancipation for one so young. 

“If they’re not afraid of death, what are they afraid 
of?” he found himself thinking. 

He himself in his youth had never thought about dy¬ 
ing _except sometimes in church in connection with music 

and crowns and glassy seas. Then once, when he was 
only a little younger than David, he had been very ill in 
the school infirmary; another boy had died, and then, he 
remembered, he did for the first time consider the pos- 


276 


THE NEW STOICS 


sibility of his, Walter Brougham’s, coming to an end, 
stopping, going out perhaps like a candle. It had been 
an uncomfortable experience, and when his mother had 
come to take care of him he had distinctly clung to her— 
as if she could have done any good. Had these boys gone 
through that and come out on the other side? He found 
it alarmed him to think that David wasn’t afraid. 

Good heavens, what would they do—this new genera¬ 
tion, young and healthy and unafraid of death, not be¬ 
cause they had never thought about it but because they 
had been familiar with it since they went into long 
trousers? 

Mr. Granby broke the silence. He said: “To order 
ourselves lowly and reverently to all our betters?” 

Brougham was puzzled by these words, and he felt 
that it was no time for puzzling him. 

“Did you think David was impertinent to me, Mr. 
Granby?” he asked. “Is that what you meant?” 

“No, that isn’t what I meant, Mr. Brougham.” 

Brougham didn’t inquire any further. He shook his 
head and went home. He found his wife and David 
sitting hand in hand on the piazza looking out to sea, with 
the same blank grave look on both their faces. Yet they 
were thinking very different thoughts. 

Mrs. Brougham was thinking that she had been 
strangely stupid not to know that this was just exactly 
the way David would do it; but she added to herself she 
had allowed her vision to be clouded by her husband. 

David was carefully reviewing the small stock of his 
technical knowledge of aeroplanes. 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 

M ISS WILBUR sat up and wrung the water out 
of her hair. Most of us have looked about a 
dinner-table and wondered which of the party 
would make the pleasantest companion on a desert is¬ 
land; Juliana had done it often enough, but now the comic 
touch was lacking. Far out, hung on some unknown 
reef, the prow of the vessel stuck up black and tall, al¬ 
most as if she were still pursuing a triumphant course 
landward, though a list to starboard betrayed her des¬ 
perate condition, and a second glance showed that the 
waves were breaking over her stern. The heavy swell 
was all that was left of the storm. The sun had just 
risen in a cloudless sky, above a dark-blue sea. It was 
perhaps that bright horizontal ray which had waked Miss 
Wilbur. It had not disturbed her rescuer, who, more 
provident, had hidden his face in his arm. 

It seems hardly possible for a young lady to be dragged 
from her berth in the dead of night, hauled to the deck, 
and literally dumped into a small boat, to be tossed out 
of the boat and dragged to shore—all by a man whose 
face and name were equally unknown. But the more 
she looked at the back of that damp head, and the line 
of those shoulders, the less familiar did they appear 
This was hardly surprising, for since she and her maid 
had taken the steamer at Trinidad, she had made so lit¬ 
tle effort at rapprochement with her fellow passengers 
that she could hardly call any of them to mind-a great 
277 


278 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


German from a banking house in Caracas; a sunburnt 
native botanist bound for the Smithsonian; a little 
Englishman from the Argentine; these were the only three 
figures she could remember. Who was this man? A 
sailor? A commercial traveler? Of what standing and 
what nationality? 

She coughed presently: “I wish you’d wake up,” she 
said, “and let me thank you for saving my life.” 

The first result of this remark was that the man 
grunted and buried his nose deeper in the sand. Then he 
rolled over, stood up, and comprehensively hitching up 
what remained of his trousers, he looked carefully round 
the horizon, then at the wall of palm-trees behind them, 
and last of all at Miss Wilbur, without the smallest 
change of expression. 

“Did I save you?” he asked. 

“Yes, don’t you remember? You caught me up in 
the dark—” 

“I had a notion it was Mrs. Morale’s son.” Again his 
eyes sought the horizon, and he turned to move away, but 
she arrested him with a question. 

“Do you think we shall be rescued?” she said. 

He stopped, eyed her, and again turned away. His 
silence annoyed her. “Why don’t you answer my 
question?” 

“Because I thought it just about worthy of someone 
who wakes up a tired man to thank him for saving her 
life. Do I think we’ll be rescued? That depends on 
whether we are in the track of vessels; and I know 
neither the track of vessels nor where we are. It depends 
on whether any of the other boats lived through the 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


279 


night. But I’ll tell you one thing. It looks to me as 
if they needn’t trouble to come at all, if they don’t come 
soon. I’m going to hunt up breakfast.” 

He disappeared into the forest of palms, leaving her 
alone. She would have liked to call him back and ask 
him what he thought of the probabilities of snakes on the 
island. Tact, however, that civilized substitute for ter¬ 
ror, restrained her. She thought him very peculiar. “I 
wonder if he’s a little crazy,” she thought. “I wonder 
if something hit him on the head.” 

He was gone a long time, and when he returned car¬ 
ried a bunch of bananas and three cocoanuts. He 
stopped short on seeing her. “Do you mean to say,” he 
cried, “that you haven’t been drying your clothes? What 
do you suppose I stayed away so long for? But no mat¬ 
ter. Have your breakfast first.” 

She refrained from expressing, at once, a profound 
distaste for cocoanuts, but when he cut one and handed 
it to her, the smell overcame her resolutions. “Oh!” she 
said, drawing back, “I caft’t bear them.” 

“You will order something else on the menu?” 

The tone was not agreeable, and Miss Wilbur eyed 
the speaker. No wonder she was at a loss, for hitherto 
her measure of men had been the people they knew, the 
clothes they wore, and, more especially, their friendli¬ 
ness to herself. In the present case, none of these were 
much help, and she decided to resort to the simpler 
means of the direct question. Besides, it had always 
been Juliana’s custom to converse during her meals and, 
peculiar though this one appeared, she saw no reason 
for making it an exception. 


280 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


“Doesn’t it seem strange,” she began, “that I don’t 
even know your name?” 

“Nathaniel or Spens?” 

“Oh! Spens, of course,” she answered, quite as if 
they had met in a ballroom. “And don’t you think,” 
she went on, “that it would be nice if we knew a little 
more about each other than just our names?” 

“A little more?” he exclaimed. “My idea was we 
were getting near the too much point.” 

“But I meant our past selves, our everyday selves— 
our real selves.” 

“So did I. I hope we sha’n’t get any realler. This is 
real enough to suit me.” He continued under his breath 
to ring the changes on this idea to his own intense satis¬ 
faction. 

Miss Wilbur gave up and began again. “I think it 
would be interesting to tell each other a little of our lives 
—who we are, and where we came from. For instance 
I’m willing to begin—I’m a New Yorker. My mother 
died when I was sixteen, and I have been at the head of 
my father’s house ever since—he has retired from busi¬ 
ness. We are quite free, and we travel a great deal. I 
came down here on a yacht. You may ask why I left it 
—well, a little difficulty arose—a situation. The owner, 
one of my best and oldest friends—” She paused. As 
she talked, questions had floated through her mind. 
Does he take in the sort of person I am at home? Does 
he realize how his toil is lightened by the contrast of my 
presence in the benighted spot? Does he know what a 
privilege it is to be cast away with me?” He was saying 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


281 


to himself: “If only I can get home before the first, I’ll 
increase that quarterly dividend.” 

She took up her narrative. “The owner, as I say, was 
one of my best and oldest friends; and yet, you know—” 

“And yet you quarreled like one o’clock.” 

“Oh, no,” said Miss Wilbur. “We did not quarrel. 
It would have been better if we had.” 

“Just sulked, you mean?” 

This was more than she could bear. “He wanted to 
marry me,” she said firmly. 

“Not really!” he exclaimed, and then, studying her 
more carefully, he added: “But of course—very natur¬ 
ally. I am sure to some types of men you would be ex¬ 
cessively desirable.” 

This was the nearest approach to a compliment that 
she had had since the ship struck, and she gulped at it 
eagerly. 

“Desirable is not quite the word,” she answered. 
“But perhaps I should rather have you think of me as 
desirable than not at all,” and she smiled fascinatingly. 

“Great Caesar’s ghost!” he exclaimed. “Did I say I 
was thinking of you? But there, I mean—I mean—” 
But it was unnecessary to complete the sentence, for 
Miss Wilbur rose, with what dignity a tattered dressing- 
gown allowed, and moved away. He followed her and 
explained with the utmost civility where there was 
another beach, how she should spread out her clothes to 
the sun, and added gravely, holding up one finger: “And 
remember to keep in the shade yourself.” 

“Oh, the sun never affects me,” said Juliana. 


282 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


This answer plainly tried him, but with some self- 
control he merely repeated his injunction in exactly the 
same words. 

Miss Wilbur’s costume was not elaborate. It com¬ 
prised, all told, a night-gown, a pink quilted dressing- 
gown, a pair of men’s sneakers, and a bit of Cartier jew¬ 
elry about her throat. She wished that dressing-gown 
had been more becoming. Just before she sailed she 
had sent her maid out to buy something warm, and the 
pink atrocity had been the result. She had thought it 
did not matter then, but, now that she might have to 
spend the rest of her life in it, she wished she had taken 
the trouble to choose it herself. 

Even if she had been completely alone on this Carib¬ 
bean island, she was too much a child of civilization to 
remove all her clothes at once. The process took time. 
As she sat under the trees and waited, she considered her 
position. 

Feelings of dislike for, and dependence upon, her res¬ 
cuer grew together in her mind. She did not say, even 
to herself, that she was afraid of him, very much in the 
same way in which she had once been afraid of her 
schoolmistress—afraid of his criticism and his contempt, 
but she expressed the same idea by saying “he was not 
very nice to her.” That he “was rather rude”! She 
thought how differently any of the men she had left on 
the yacht at Trinidad would have behaved. Alfred, for 
instance. It would have been rather fun to have been 
cast away with Alfred. He would have been tender and 
solicitous. Poor Alfred! She began to think it had been 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


283 


an absurd scruple that had made her leave the party. 
It had seemed as if she could not cruise another day on 
the yacht of a man she had refused so decidedly to 
marry. After such a scene, too! Miss Wilbur frowned 
and shook her head at the recollection. As a matter of 
fact, she liked scenes. 

She had so far used the freedom of her life in elimi¬ 
nating from her consciousness those who did not contrib¬ 
ute to her self-esteem. Sometimes she created admira¬ 
tion where it had not existed. Sometimes, when this 
seemed impossible, she simply withdrew. The latter 
method was obviously out of the question on this little 
dot of an island. 

But the other? One of the unquestioned facts in Miss 
Wilbur’s life was her own extreme charm; and this 
thought brought another to her mind. The picture of 
the traditional male—the beast of prey! In spite of 
the American girl’s strange mixture of inexperience 
and sophistication, she is not entirely without the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation. She remembered his long 
Yankee jaw with relief. 

When she returned she found he had erected four poles 
with cross beams and was attempting to thatch it with 
banana-leaves, to the accompaniment of a low sibilant 
whistle. 

“What’s that?” she asked. He completed the phrase 
diminuendo before answering. 

“This,” he said, “is where you are going to sleep, 
and, if it doesn’t fall in on you in the night, I’ll build 
another for myself to-morrow. Look out where you step. 


284 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


I’m drying two vestas on that rock. If they light, we’ll 
have a fire, and perhaps some day something to eat. 
Suppose you go and find some wood?” 

She hesitated. “Do you think there are snakes on 
this island?” she hazarded; and oh, with what enthusiasm 
such a suggestion of femininity would have been re¬ 
ceived on the yacht! 

“Think not,” said her companion; “but I’d look out 
for scorpions and centipedes and things like that, you 
know.” 

The suggestion did not increase her enthusiasm for 
her task. She hung about a few minutes longer and 
then collected a few twigs along the beach, raising them 
carefully between her thumb and forefinger. They did 
not make an imposing pile, as she felt when her rescuer 
came to inspect it, looking first at it and then at her, 
with his hands in his pockets. 

“I hope you won’t overdo?” he said. 

Juliana colored. “Did you expect me to carry great 
logs?” she asked. “Women can’t do that sort of thing.” 

He moved away without answering, and presently had 
collected enough wood for many fires. 

“I’d like to see you lay a fire,” he said. 

She threw some of the small sticks together, then the 
larger ones, as she had seen the housemaid do at home. 
Then, embarrassed at his silent observation, she drew 
back. 

“Of course I can’t do it, if you watch me,” she ex¬ 
claimed. 

“You can’t do it anyhow, because you don’t know the 
principle. The first thing a fire needs is air. It’s done 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


285 


like this.” He tore down and re-erected her structure. 

If Miss Wilbur had followed her impulse, she would 
have kicked it down as he finished, but she managed a 
fine aloofness instead. He did not appear to notice her 
chin in the air. 

“Yes,” he observed, as he rose from his knees, “it’s a 
handy thing to know—how to lay a fire, and as you say, 
one is naturally grateful to the fellow who teaches one. 
I’m going to look for food. Keep a lookout for ships. 

He had hardly gone when he came bounding back 
again, waving two small fish by the tails. “Got ’em,’ 
he shouted. “Dug out some ponds this morning, but 
never thought it would work, but here they are. Now 
we’ll light the fire.” 

His excitement was contagious. She sprang up, held 
the skirt of her dressing-gown to shield the match, blew 
the flame, almost blew it out. Finally, with the help 
of both matches the fire was lit. 

“I’m so hungry,” she said. “Do you think they’ll 

taste good?” 

He did not answer. She could not but be impressed 
by the deftness with which he split and boned the fish, 
and the invention he displayed in evolving cooking 
utensils out of shells and sticks. 

“You know,” he said suddenly, “this fire must never go 
out. This will be your job. Sort of vestal-virgin idea.” 

The charge made her nervous. The responsibility 
was serious. During one of his absences she began to 
think the flame was dying down. She put in a stick. 
It blazed too quickly. A crash followed and one of the 
fish disappeared into the fire. 


286 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


After a time she managed to drag it out, black and 
sandy. She dreaded his return. How could she make 
clear to him that it had not been her fault? She decided 
on a comic manner. Holding it up by the tail, she 
smiled at him. “Doesn’t that look delicious?” she asked 
gayly. 

His brow darkened. “All right, if you like them that 
way,” he returned. 

“Don’t you think the other is large enough for two?” 

His answer was to remove the other from the fire and 
to eat it himself. 

Miss Wilbur watched him to the end, and then she 
could contain herself no longer. She had been extremely 
hungry. 

“Upon my word,” she said, “I’ve known a good 
many selfish men, but I never before saw one who would 
not have taken the bread out of his mouth to give to a 
hungry woman.” 

Her rescuer looked at her unshaken. “You don’t 
think that was just?” he inquired. 

“I am not talking of justice, but of chivalry,” replied 
Miss Wilbur passionately. “Of consideration for the 
weak. You are physically stronger than I—” 

“And I intend to remain so.” 

“At my expense?” 

“If you fell ill, I should be sorry. If I fell ill, you 
would die.” He turned away sharply, but half-way up 
to the beach thought better of it and returned. 

“See here,” he said, “I’m an irritable man, and a 
tired man. This whole thing isn’t going to be easy for 
either of us. And what do we find, the first crack out of 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


287 


the box? That you are not only incompetent, but that 
you want to be social and pleasant over it. Great Scott! 
what folly! Well, if it’s any satisfaction to you, I know 
I’m not behaving well either. But you don’t seem aware 
of even that much, or of anything, indeed”—he smiled 
faintly—“except your own good looks.” 

He left her to meditate. 

Battle, murder, and sudden death are not as great a 
shock to some people as their own failure to please. 
Miss Wilbur, being incapable of looking within for the 
cause of this phenomenon, looked at her companion. 
Evidently he was a peculiar, nervous sort of a creature, 
and, after all, had he been so successful? He hardly 
came up to the desert-island standard, set by the father 
of the Swiss Family Robinson. She reviewed him with 
a critical eye. He was a nice-looking young man of the 
clean-shaven type. He lacked the great air, she told 
herself, which was not surprising, since eighteen months 
before there had been nothing whatever to distinguish 
him from any of the other shrewd young men produced 
in such numbers by the State of Connecticut. But 
chance had waved her wand, and it had fallen to his lot 
to head a congenial band of patriots who, controlling a 
group of trolleys, had parted with them at a barefaced 
price to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail¬ 
way. Since this coup he had rather rested on his laurels, 
spending most of his time with a classmate in New York, 
where he had acquired a tailor and had succeeded in 
getting himself elected to the directorate of The General 
Fruit Company—an organization which, as every Italian 
vender knows, deals in such miscellaneous commodities 


288 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


as bananas, hides, coffee, rubber, sugar, copper-mines, 
and narrow-gauge railroads along the Caribbean shores, 
with an argosy for transportation to Spokane, New 
Orleans, Baltimore, Boston, Bristol, or Bordeaux. 

For some reason his mastery of the desert island was 
not complete. His race’s traditional handiness seemed to 
be slightly in abeyance; perhaps because luck was against 
him, perhaps on account of a too pervasive feminine pres¬ 
ence. But for whatever reason, things did not improve. 
Nothing came ashore from the wreck—not even when, 
after a small gale, it turned over and disappeared. The 
banana shelter leaked in the rain, and as Miss Wil¬ 
bur sat steaming in the sunshine which immediately 
succeeded she felt inclined to attribute all her discom¬ 
forts to Spens. He seemed to have no faculty whatever 
for evolving things out of nothing, which, she had always 
understood, was the great occupation of desert-island 
life. Their food continued to be bananas and cocoanuts, 
varied by an occasional fish; and, instead of being apolo¬ 
getic for such meagre fare, he seemed to think she ought 
to be grateful. 

Now Miss Wilbur could have been grateful, if he had 
not roused her antagonism by his continual adverse criti¬ 
cism of herself. She wished to show him that she could 
be critical too; and so she sniffed at his fish, and took 
no interest in his roofing arrangements, and treated him, 
in short, exactly as the providing male should not be 
treated. Man cannot stoop to ask for praise, but he can 
eternally sulk if he does not get it. The domestic at¬ 
mosphere of the island was anything but cordial. 

After all, she used to say to herself, why should she 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


289 


labor under any profound sense of obligation? Even 
when he appeared to be considering her comfort she saw 
an ulterior motive. He came, for instance, one day, 
civilly enough, and pointed out a little row of white 
stones marking off a portion of the island. 

“The beach beyond this line is ceded to you,” he 
observed gravely. “No fooling. I’m in earnest. Of 
course I understand that you like to be alone sometimes. 
Here you’ll never be disturbed. When I annoy you 
past bearing, you can come here.” For a moment she 
was touched by his kindness, the next he had added: 
“And would you mind allowing me a similiar privilege 
on the other side of the island?” 

His tone was a trifle more nipping than he had in¬ 
tended, but no suavity could have concealed his mean¬ 
ing. His plan had been designed not to please her, but 
to protect himself. No one before had ever plotted 
to relieve himself of Miss Wilbur’s company. Subter¬ 
fuges had always had an opposite intention. She had 
been clamored for and quarreled over. She withdrew 
immediately to the indicated asylum. 

“I’m not accustomed to such people,” she said to her¬ 
self. “He makes me feel different—horrid. I can’t be 
myself.” It was not the first time she had talked to 
herself, and she wondered if her mind were beginning to 
give way under the strain of the situation. “I’d like to 
box his ears until they rang. Until they rang!” she re¬ 
peated, and felt like a criminal. Who would have sup¬ 
posed she had such instincts! 

For the tenth time that day she caught together the 
sleeve of the detested dressing-gown. How shocked Al- 


290 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


fred and her father would be to think a man lived who 
could treat her so! but the thought of their horror soothed 
her less as it became more and more unlikely that they 
would ever know anything about it. 

She stayed behind her stones until he called her to 
luncheon. They ate in silence. Toward the end she 
said gently: 

“Would you mind not whistling quite so loud?” 

“Certainly not, if the sound annoys you.” 

“Oh, it isn’t the sound so much, only”—and she smiled 
angelically—“it always seems to me a little flat.” 

She had a great success. Spens colored. 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t pretend to be a musician, 
but it has always been agreed that I had an excellent 
ear.” 

“In Green Springs, Connecticut?” 

He did not answer, but moved gloomily away. Two 
or three times she heard him start an air and cut it short. 
A smile flickered across her face. So sweet to her was it 
to be the aggressor that she did not return behind the 
white stones, but remained, like a cat at a rat-hole, wait¬ 
ing beside the fire to which Spens would have to return 
eventually. 

She had resolved that it must be kindly yet firmly 
made clear to him that he was not behaving like a gentle¬ 
man, and if, as seemed possible, he did not understand all 
that the word implied, she felt quite competent to ex¬ 
plain it to him. 

Perhaps the idea that his conduct was not quite up 
even to his own standards had already occurred to him, 
for when he returned he carried a peace-offering. 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 291 


He stood before her, holding something toward her. 
“I notice,” he said, “that you go about in the sun bare¬ 
headed. You oughtn’t to do that, and so I have made 
you this,” and she saw the green mass in his hands was 
leaves carefully fashioned into the shape of a hat. 

It may perhaps be forgiven to Miss Wilbur that her 
heart sank. Nevertheless, she took the offering, express¬ 
ing her gratitude with a little too much volubility. I 
must put it on at once,” she said. Green had never 
become her, but she placed it firmly on her head. 

Spens studied it critically. “It fits you exactly, he 
observed with pleasure. “You see I could only guess at 
the size. Isn’t it fortunate that I guessed so exactly 


right!” 

She saw that he was immensely gratified and, trying 
to enter into the spirit of the thing she said: 

“What a pity I can’t see the effect!” 

“You can.” He drew his watch from his pocket, and 
opened the back of the case. “It doesn’t keep time any 
longer,” he said, “but it can still serve as a looking-glass, 


and he held it up. 

Now any one who has ever looked at himself m the 
back of a watch-case knows that it does not make a 
becoming mirror; it enlarges the tip of the nose, an 
decreases the size of the eyes. Juliana had not. so far 
had any vision of herself. Now, .for the first time, in 
this unfavorable reflection, she took in her flattened hair, 
her tattered dressing-gown, and, above all, the flapping, 
intoxicated head-gear which she had just received. She 
snatched it from her head with a gesture quicker than 
thought. 


292 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


“I believe you enjoy making me ridiculous,” she said 
passionately. 

“Nothing could be m^re ridiculous than to say that,” 
he answered. “I wanted to save your health, but if you 
prefer sunstroke to an unbecoming hat—not that I 
thought it unbecoming—” 

“It was hideous.” 

“I can only say that I don’t think so.” 

Miss Wilbur slowly crushed the offending object and 
dropped it into the fire. Ridiculous or not, there would 
never be any question about that again. 

“Of course,” she observed after a pause, “I don’t ex¬ 
pect you to understand how I feel about this—how I feel 
about anything—how any lady feels about anything.” 

“Is it particularly ladylike not to wish to wear an 
unbecoming hat?” 

This of course was war, and Miss Wilbur took it up 
with spirit. “Unhappily, it is ladylike,” she answered, 
“to have been so sheltered from hardships that when 
rudeness and stupidity are added—” 

“Come, come,” said Spens, “we each feel we have too 
good a case to spoil by losing our tempers. Sit down, 
and let us discuss it calmly. You first. I promise not 
to interrupt. You object to my being rude and stupid. 
So far so good, but develop your idea.” 

The tone steadied Juliana. “I don’t complain of the 
hardships,” she began. “I don’t speak of the lack of 
shelter and food. These are not your fault, although,” 
she could not resist adding, “some people might have 
managed a little better, I fancy. What I complain of 
is your total lack of appreciation of what this situation 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


293 


means to me. I haven’t knocked about the world like a 
man. I’ve never been away from home without my maid. 
I’ve never before been without everything that love 
and money could get me, and instead of pitying me for 
this you do everything in your power to make it harder. 
Instead of being considerate you are not even civil. 
No one could think you civil—no one that I know, at 
least. You do everything you can to make me feel that 
my presence, instead of being a help and a pleasure, is 
an unmitigated .bother.” 

There was a pause. “Well,” said Spens, “since we are 
being so candid, have you been a help? Have you even 
done your own share? Certainly not. I don’t speak of 
the things you can’t help—your burning of the fish—” 

“The fish! I don’t see how you have the effrontery 
to mention the fish.” 

“Nor of your upsetting our first supply of rain-water. 
Constitutional clumsiness is something no one can help, 
I suppose. But it does irritate me that you seem to find 
it all so confoundedly fascinating in you. You seemed 
to think it was cunning to burn the fish, and playful 
to upset the water. In other words, though I don’t mind 
carrying a dead weight, I’m hanged if I’ll regard it as 
a beauteous burden.” 

Miss Wilbur rose to her feet. “The trouble with you 
is,” she said, “that you haven’t the faintest idea how a 
gentleman behaves.” 

“Well, I’m learning all right how a lady behaves,” he 
retorted. 

After this it was impossible to give any consistent 
account of their conversation. They both spoke at 


294 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


once, phrases such as these emerging from the confusion: 
“—you talk about ladies and gentlemen.” “Thank 
Heaven, I know something of men and women”; 
“—civilized life and the people I know”; “—never been 
tested before.” “Do you think you have survived the 
test so well?” 

The last sentence was Miss Wilbur’s, and under cover 
of it she retreated to her own domains. Spens, left in 
possession of the field, presently withdrew to the other 
side of the island. 

Here for two or three days he had had a secret from 
Juliana. He had invented, constucted, and was in 
process of perfecting himself in a game with shells and 
cocoanuts which bore a family resemblance to both quoits 
and hop-scotch. He turned to it now to soothe and dis¬ 
tract him. It was a delightful game, and exactly suited 
his purpose, requiring as it did skill, concentration, and 
agility. He had just accomplished a particularly diffi¬ 
cult feat which left him in the attitude of the Flying Mer¬ 
cury, when his eye fell upon a smutch of smoke upon the 
horizon, beneath which the funnel of a vessel was al¬ 
ready apparent. 

Spen’s methods of showing joy were all his own. He 
threw the tattered remnants of his cap in the air, and 
when it came down he jumped on it again and again. 

His next impulse was to run and call Juliana, but he 
did not follow it. Instead he piled wood on the fire until 
it was a veritable column of flame, and then with folded 
arms he took his stand on the beach. 

Within a few minutes he became convinced that the 
vessel, a steamer of moderate size, had sighted his signal. 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 295 

They were going to be rescued. Very soon he and 
Juliana would be sailing back to civilization. He would 
be fitted out by the ship’s officers, and Juliana would be 
very self-conscious about appearing in the stewardess’s 
clothes. They would figure in the papers—a rising 
young capitalist, and a society girl. Her father would 
be on the pier. There would be explanations. He him¬ 
self would be a child in their hands. A vision of engraved 
cards, a faint smell of orange-blossoms, floated through 
his mind. His resolve was taken. He sprang up, ran 
through the palms, and penetrated without knocking to 
where Miss Wilbur was sitting, with her back against a 
tree. She glanced up at him with the utmost detestation. 

“I thought that here, at least—” she began, but he 
paid no attention. 

«Juliana,” he exclaimed in his excitement, “there is a 
vessel on the other side of the island. She’ll be here in 
twenty minutes, and you are going home in her. Now, 
don’t make any mistake. You are going home. I stay 
here. No, don’t say anything. I’ve thought it over, and 
this is the only way. We can’t both go home. Think 
of landing, think of the papers, think of introducing me 
to that distinguished bunch—the people you know. No, 
no, you’ve been here all alone, and you’re an extraor¬ 
dinarily clever, capable girl, and have managed to 
make yourself wonderfully comfortable, considering. No, 
don’t protest. I am not taking any risk. Here’s a ves¬ 
sel at the end of ten days. Another may be here to¬ 
morrow. Anyhow, be sure it’s what I prefer. A cocoa- 
nut and liberty. Good-by. Better be getting down to 
the beach to wave.” 


296 


WORSE THAN MARRIED 


Miss Wilbur hesitated. “At least/’ she said, “let me 
know when you do get home.” 

“I’ll telephone from Green Springs. Now run along,” 
and taking her by the shoulders, he turned her toward 
the path. 

She had, however, scarcely reached the beach, and seen 
the vessel now looming large and near, when she heard 
a hoarse whisper: “I’ve forgotten my tobacco.” A face 
and arm gleamed out from the bush. He snatched the 
pouch, and this time was finally gone. 

The keel of the ship’s boat grated on the sand, and a 
flustered young officer sprang out. Juliana was inclined 
to make a moment of it, but it was getting dark, and the 
captain, what with carrying the mails and being well 
out of his course, was cross enough as it was. 

“One of you men go up there and stamp out that fire,” 
he said. “No use in bringing anyone else in here.” 

An expression of terror crossed Miss Wilbur’s face, 
and a cry burst from her: “Oh, he’ll be so angry.” 
The officer caught only the terror, and, setting it down 
to natural hysteria, pushed off without more ado. 

Night fell, and the stars came out with the startling 
rapidity of the tropics. There was no wind, but puffs of 
salt air lifted the fronds of the palms. 

Suddenly over the water was borne the sharp jangle 
of an engine-room bell, and the beat of a vessel’s 
propellers. 


THE END 


I 






I 






























/ 


* 












9 - 









1 






. J 



































» 


f 












































